Binance estimates US$6.3 billion hacked in crypto’s biggest heist

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Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesCrypto exchange Binance has suffered a US$6.3 billion hack, the largest to hit the digital-asset industry and the latest in a slew of security incidents afflicting the financial sector.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountThe world’s largest crypto trading platform suspended all withdrawals Friday and pledged to cover all losses. Binance said in a post on X that about US$3 billion of the assets had been frozen on blockchain networks. In another post, co-founder Yi He said withdrawals were expected to resume by Sunday.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.While the full details of the Binance breach have yet to emerge, the incident comes amid growing concern about the risks posed by hackers in the age of artificial intelligence. Other recent cyberattacks have hit prediction market Polymarket, South Korean financial firms Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. and Daishin Securities, as well as Japanese currency trading platform GMO Internet Group Inc.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againBlockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic have all pointed to North Korea as behind the Binance heist. TRM called it “the largest crypto theft on record.” The funds drained in the attack were a mix of the largest cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, and the dollar-backed stablecoins USDT and USDC.The breach is a setback for an industry that is maturing and seeking to expand into traditional finance. Before now, the biggest publicly known crypto hack occurred at exchange Bybit in February 2025, in which attackers made off with almost US$1.5 billion in tokens.Notorious previous episodes of theft and fraud among fallen crypto giants such as FTX and Mt. Gox set the stage for protracted bear markets, bruises the industry has worked to put behind it in United States President Donald Trump’s promised new era of regulatory clarity for cryptocurrencies.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Largest token Bitcoin fell on news of the Binance attack, dropping below US$77,000 for the first time in more than a month. It pared losses later, trading at around US$77,500 at 6 a.m. in New York.For crypto faithful who’d been basking in a two-month-long price rebound, the Binance incident has cast a shadow over the recovery.“Binance is such a behemoth in crypto that any hit to confidence in them is a hit to confidence in the industry as a whole, especially as people have already been skittish over the increasing cyber capabilities of AI,” said Fredrick Collins, chief executive officer and co-founder of crypto data platform Velo Data.Binance dwarfs its industry rivals. It holds roughly US$135.2 billion in assets, compared with US$28.6 billion at the second-largest exchange OKX, according to DefiLlama data.The hackers appear to have exploited how Binance authorizes transactions, according to TRM. They seemingly gained access to the exchange’s systems and used internal software to authorize transfers across 10 different blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, it said.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.“TRM attributes the attack to TraderTraitor, North Korea’s elite hacking unit, based on robust on and off-chain intelligence,” the firm said. “We make this judgment with high confidence.”Binance said the incident may involve a compromised software engineer’s laptop, among “additional points of breach.” It found no evidence of leaked private keys, it said.“This was a complex attack, and we are doing all we can in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it,” Binance said in a post on X.An emergency insurance and reserve fund from Binance called the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) was established in 2018 to serve as a backstop for customers in “extreme situations,” according to the exchange. The SAFU is generally maintained at around US$1 billion, but has fluctuated in the past in tandem with market movements, Binance said in 2024.The two biggest stablecoin issuers said they took steps to freeze affected currency. Paolo Ardoino, the chief executive officer of Tether, said in an X post that it froze more than US$1.5 billion of the stablecoin “related to a potential Binance exchange hack.” Jeremy Allaire, who runs Circle Internet Group Inc., said US$800 million of its coin had been frozen amid “reports of a potential exploit involving Binance.”This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Sentiment was already fragile after a spate of crypto security incidents. In recent months, hundreds of millions of dollars were drained from Bitget, while tampering involving Ledger devices also led to millions of dollars in losses.“Attackers are operating at unprecedented speed and scale” but “the tools to track and trace operate at that speed too,” said Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs. “Stablecoin issuers freeze within hours. Investigators follow funds across chains in real time.”Traders had already been bracing for greater volatility in the crypto market this week, with US$11 billion in options set to expire Friday. This comes days ahead of the U.S. midterm elections taking place next week, when Democrats could potentially retake one or both chambers of Congress and open the door to greater regulatory scrutiny for the industry.Exchange thefts and malfeasance have been an ever-present backdrop of crypto’s almost two-decade ascent, the most famous of which was the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX in November 2022. In what remains perhaps the most notorious hacking incident, Japan-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was struck in 2011. Over time, the hackers made off with tokens worth billions of dollars based on the current market price. Mt. Gox eventually went bankrupt.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.“It’s a huge damage to crypto because of the consistent successful hacks in the space,” said Tian Zeng, chief executive officer of crypto hedge fund Third Eye. “The fact that exploits keep happening makes it dangerous in the age of newest AI models being released every two weeks.”The Binance incident came on the same day event-contract venue Polymarket halted trading on its international exchange for an hour after it said that a third-party software provider was compromised. More than 700 Polymarket users were drained of US$2.7 million in funds, said blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps, in a post on X. A spokesman declined to comment on the numbers.South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange Bithumb was also among the country’s finance firms hit by data breaches this week, with hundreds of customer records affected, Yonhap reported.With assistance from Suvashree Ghosh, Teresa Xie, Olga Kharif and Emily Nicolle.We apologize, but this video has failed to load.This advertisement has not loaded yet.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.