Hackers Steal Record $6.3 Billion in Crypto from Binance Wallets

Hackers siphoned roughly $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance hot wallets in what appears to be the largest digital heist in history. The breach began on Thursday starting around 4 pm ET, with the majority of the funds drained across at least ten blockchains in a period of about 20 minutes on October 29. Binance immediately suspended all deposits and withdrawals following the attack and stated it will cover all losses.

Investigation and Freezing Funds

Crypto firms and tracing companies have managed to freeze around $2.8 billion, or roughly 44 percent of the stolen funds, mostly consisting of stablecoins. However, experts note that the remaining $3.3 billion is mostly Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP, which cannot be frozen and may be gone for good as attackers use automated laundering patterns. Binance stated that its initial investigation pointed to a compromised engineer's laptop, though subsequent analysis uncovered additional points of breach.

Possible Suspects

Crypto tracing firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis believe that North Korean hackers known as TraderTraitor may be behind the attack. Elliptic cofounder Tom Robinson noted overlaps in activity, stating that the theft could double everything the regime has stolen in crypto to date. Chainalysis investigators observed stolen funds commingling with funds from a previous Bitget exploit attributed to North Korean actors. Neither Binance nor law enforcement officials have officially named any suspected links to North Korea.

Context

Hot wallets are cryptocurrency wallets connected to the internet that allow exchanges to process customer withdrawals quickly, making them frequent targets for major attacks. Crypto tracing firms analyze on-chain and off-chain transaction data to track stolen digital funds across various blockchains and identify laundering patterns. Such large-scale heists highlight ongoing security challenges within decentralized finance platforms and the increasing sophistication of digital asset theft.