Crypto Heist

Crypto Billions Vanish Fast

Hackers have stolen about $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. This is the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. Most of it unfolded in roughly 20 minutes. The previous record was the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025.

The initial investigation points to a compromised engineer’s laptop. The attackers gained access to Binance systems and ordered affected wallets to send crypto to wallets they controlled. The exchange later said it had found additional breach points.

The hack undermines trust in the entire crypto industry, which for years has sought mainstream acceptance. Binance had to halt withdrawals after the theft.

Stablecoins Fought Back

Roughly $3 billion of the stolen crypto has been frozen. This was possible because much of the haul was in stablecoins, crypto designed to track established currencies such as the US dollar. Many have central issuers that can prevent stolen tokens from moving.

• Tether froze nearly $1.6 billion.
• Circle froze more than $800 million.
• Standard crypto, including bitcoin and ether, cannot be frozen by an issuer.

A freeze stops the thief from moving the assets but recovering them will take a longer legal process. The attackers have converted about $3.3 billion into assets that can’t be frozen and have begun trying to cash them out, according to Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm.

When Someone Else Holds It

The attack exposes one of the risks of keeping crypto on a centralized exchange. When customers leave assets with Binance, the exchange controls the infrastructure used to store and move them. If that infrastructure is compromised, customers can be exposed even if their own passwords and private keys weren't stolen.

The flip side is that a centralized exchange can potentially absorb the loss. In Binance’s case, this is exactly what’s happening. The company has pledged to reimburse all losses to customers. Binance has a $1.2 billion emergency fund, which should cover about a third of them, assuming the frozen assets will be returned.

Founder Changpeng Zhao also floated the possibility of selling the Binance’s $1 billion stake in SpaceX, after a social media spat with the firm’s CEO Elon Musk.

North Korea Under Suspicion

Blockchain analysts at TRM Labs and Chainalysis say they are highly confident North Korea’s state-sponsored hacking unit TraderTraitor was behind the attack. Binance has not publicly attributed it to anyone.

This wouldn't be a first: The FBI blamed North Korea for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025 — the previous crypto heist record. Impoverished and sanctioned North Korea is thought to be behind many sophisticated attacks in recent years, targeting Hollywood studios, central banks, and exchanges. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service estimates there’s about 8,400 North Koreans trained in cyber warfare.

Crypto exchanges are juicy targets. They hold billions of dollars in digital assets that can be transferred across borders in minutes.