Elite North Korean hackers are blamed for $6.3bn raid on crypto giant Binance in the 'largest hack in history'
Binance halted all withdrawals after a hack through a single engineer's laptop drained an estimated $6.3bn — surpassing the previous record $1.5bn Bybit breach in 2025.Around $3bn of the $6.3bn stolen from Binance has already been frozen, with Tether and Circle locking more than $2.3bn in stablecoin assets connected to the breach.
North Korea's elite TraderTraitor hacking unit siphoned $6.36bn from Binance wallets across ten blockchains in roughly 20 minutes on Thursday evening, with two US blockchain intelligence firms — TRM Labs and Chainalysis — both attributing the attack with "high confidence." Around $3bn has been frozen by Binance and partner platforms, but the remaining $3.3bn is still in the hackers' hands.
The breach is thought to have begun when an engineer's laptop was compromised, giving attackers access to a service container to submit unauthorised withdrawals.
Bitcoin slid more than 3% to $76,368, its lowest level in six weeks, Coinbase shares fell 4.8%, and Strategy, a major bitcoin buyer, lost nearly 6% in after-hours US trading.
Binance, which has 335 million registered users, says it will cover ALL losses — even as co-founder Changpeng Zhao, pardoned by President Trump last year after a money-laundering guilty plea, described it as looking 'like a hack.'
