TLDR
- Binance says a hack cost it about $6.3 billion, the largest crypto theft on record.
- About $3 billion of the assets have been frozen, including more than $2.3 billion in USDT and USDC.
- Binance’s first probe points to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, and it found no sign of a private key leak.
- Binance says it will cover all losses with its SAFU fund and company money.
- Bitcoin fell 4.8% to below $77,000, and security firms say North Korea is the likely culprit.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, said on Thursday that attackers stole about $6.3 billion in assets. Security experts are calling it the biggest crypto hack in history.
BREAKING: Binance has been hacked with wallets across the Ethereum, Bitcoin, and TRON networks seeing outflows of -$5.7 billion.
The hack includes $1.45 billion worth of Bitcoin and $875 million worth of ETH.
If confirmed, this would mark the biggest hack in crypto history.
We…
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 29, 2026
The exchange said about $3 billion of the affected assets have been frozen. That includes more than $2.3 billion in the USDT and USDC stablecoins. Tether froze over $1.57 billion in USDT, and Circle froze over $800 million in USDC.
How the Hack Happened
Binance’s early investigation points to a compromised laptop that belonged to a DevOps engineer. The exchange said this may have let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals.
Binance's initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any wallet private… pic.twitter.com/5REncAI77y
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
Binance said it found no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked. It plans to publish a detailed technical report once the facts are fully verified.
Blockaid, a security firm, said the attacker bundled 50 EIP-7702 authorizations into a single transaction. One of them matched the account’s required nonce, so it was accepted. The affected account was then linked to an unverified contract that let an operator drain tokens and ether.
Blockaid CEO Ido Ben-Natan said the attack looked like a compromise of signing systems. He called it “very, very similar” to the February 2025 Bybit attack.
Who Is Behind It
Several security groups said North Korea was likely responsible. TRM Labs said it traced the attack to a group called TraderTraitor and has “high confidence” in that view. Investigator ZachXBT named the Lazarus Group as the likely attacker.
Binance has not named the attackers. It said it is working with law enforcement to identify them.
Market Reaction and Recovery
Crypto prices fell after the news. Bitcoin dropped 4.8% to below $77,000, and ether fell 5.7%. BNB, the token of the Binance-linked BNB Chain, fell 8%, and AAVE fell 11%.
Arkham data showed the hacker’s wallets once held more than $5.7 billion. That included nearly $1.5 billion in bitcoin and $900 million in ether. The funds were later seen moving through the Uniswap exchange.
Attention!
The Binance hacker is now dumping $PEPE, $UNI, $LINK, and other tokens on-chain for $ETH.Please note:
The hacker still holds large amounts of the following altcoins, which could face heavy selling pressure:217.497M $ENA ($39.51M)
7.579T $PEPE ($34.41M)
2.575M… https://t.co/648mpSyTn6 pic.twitter.com/yuaqxLn7ZY— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 29, 2026
The attacker also borrowed at least 20,000 wrapped ether, worth about $44 million, on Aave. The attacker used stolen USDT as collateral.
Binance held about $144 billion in assets before the hack, according to DefiLlama. The stolen funds are roughly 4% of that total.
Binance co-CEO Yi He said the exchange will cover all losses. The company will use its Secure Asset Fund for Users, which holds about $1 billion in bitcoin, along with company funds. Founder Changpeng Zhao said user funds are safe.
Binance suspended deposits and withdrawals while it runs security checks. Yi He said she expects withdrawals to reopen within 48 hours. The exchange also promised to publish an updated Proof of Reserves.
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