Crypto firm Binance covers 90% of losses after $6.3bn hack

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has managed to cover 90% of the $6.3 billion in assets lost due to a hack that occurred on Thursday. The remaining 10% of the losses may take a bit longer to settle, according to the company. Binance had set aside more than $6.34 billion in its funds to cover the losses, which it insists are not the users' problem but its own.

It replenished the stolen assets using various funds and its own corporate treasury, covering all holdings of bitcoin, ethereum, and Tether, along with seven other widely traded crypto assets.

The company aims to resume withdrawal services for users, with a goal to reopen withdrawals on Sunday, November 1st. Binance is on track to fulfill this plan, and will provide an update once the details are confirmed. The initial investigation pointed to an engineer's compromised laptop as the breach point, but further findings revealed additional points of entry.

Richard Teng, Binance's co-CEO, revealed that more than one person was involved in the hack, which employed sophisticated methods to conceal the thieves' identities, including a self-destruct mechanism.

Binance froze approximately $3 billion of the stolen assets after collaborating with law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and partners. The US Secret Service is working tirelessly alongside private sector partners to identify, freeze, trace, and recover the stolen funds. Two prominent blockchain analytics firms have strong intelligence indicating that a North Korean state-backed group called The Lazarus Group, also known as TraderTraitor, is likely responsible for the theft.

The FBI has also stated that North Korea is responsible for the $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit exchange last year, a claim that North Korea has consistently denied.