Crypto giant Binance hit by $6.3bn hack suspected to be largest in history

On Thursday, cryptocurrency exchange Binance disclosed that $6.3bn (£4.7bn) of digital assets have been compromised in a potential record-breaking hack. The world's largest crypto exchange reported that approximately half of those assets have been frozen with assistance from other platforms, and they intend to cover all losses. Early findings suggest the incident may have been linked to a compromised engineer's laptop, enabling unauthorized withdrawals, according to Binance.

Two analytics firms have attributed the incident, surpassing the $1.5bn hack on Bybit exchange in 2025, to a North Korean hacking unit named TraderTraitor. Ari Redbord, the global head of policy at AI-powered investigations company TRM Labs, stated that several attributes of the Binance attack mirror previous North Korean-linked incidents.

The company's head of research, Eric Jardine, urged exchanges to remain vigilant as they are attractive targets for hackers due to the substantial value of assets. Binance did not directly address the incident's potential ties to North Korea but stated that they are collaborating with law enforcement to confirm the culprits' identities and bring them to justice.

Binance.com, the affected platform, is significantly larger than Binance.US, a smaller crypto platform catering to American residents, which was not impacted. Yi He, Binance's co-chief executive, expressed gratitude to cryptocurrency issuers for freezing assets and emphasized that safety is the top priority. Tether and Circle, two major crypto platforms, also froze a combined total of about $2.4bn in response to the potential Binance hack.

The incident affected Bitcoin, causing it to drop by more than 4% and impacting other major cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Solana.