Daily newsletter · Sat 31 Oct 2026
Hackers took US$6.3 billion from Binance, the biggest crypto theft on record
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked late on Thursday, and US$6.3 billion went missing. The previous record was the US$1.5 billion taken from the exchange Bybit in February 2025.
The money left in about 20 minutes. The attackers emptied Binance wallets on 10 blockchains into wallets of their own. Co-chief executive Richard Teng said a hacked laptop belonging to a Binance engineer may have been the way in, and Binance later found other points of entry.
Two US blockchain analysis firms, TRM Labs and Chainalysis, blamed TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit. Binance says it has not attributed the attack to anyone.
About US$3 billion has been frozen since, more than US$2.3 billion of it by the stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle. Binance has set aside US$6.34 billion of its own money to repay customers, and suspended withdrawals in the meantime.
Bitcoin fell to a six-week low of about US$76,400. Coinbase, the biggest US exchange, lost 10.62%, after its own quarterly revenue fell about a third from a year earlier.
Binance can cover the loss from its own funds, so customers should get their money back. The test comes when withdrawals reopen, which Binance expects within about 45 hours, and customers decide whether to leave their money there.
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