Overview
- Hackers moved about $6.3 billion from Binance in roughly 20 minutes on October 29, 2026, in what investigators say is the largest recorded crypto theft.
- The FBI publicly attributed the attack to the North Korea‑linked group TraderTraitor and released wallet addresses to help exchanges, issuers, and node operators block related transactions.
- Blockchain firms and issuers froze roughly $2.9–3.0 billion of the stolen assets on‑chain, while analysts estimate about $3.2–3.3 billion remains outside issuer control and is being converted into hard‑to‑freeze assets.
- Binance says it has covered about 95% of user losses using its SAFU reserve and company funds and has restored withdrawals in phased batches after an initial $3.6 billion of net outflows when services reopened.
- Investigators say the breach began with a compromised DevOps engineer laptop and involved additional breach points and self‑erasing tools, complicating forensics and increasing the risk that converted funds will be laundered through bridges, DeFi and instant‑swap services.