$6.3 Billion Stolen: Binance Suffers Largest Crypto Theft in History, About $3 Billion Frozen, Exchange Pledges Full Reimbursement
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, released preliminary findings on the evening of October 29: the security incident that hit the company that day had an estimated total impact of about $6.3 billion, the largest theft in the cryptocurrency industry's history. Binance said about $3 billion of the affected assets had been frozen on-chain with the help of partners, and that the company would cover all hacking losses from its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company funds, adding that user funds are safe.
The incident unfolded on the afternoon of October 29, Eastern Time. On-chain trackers detected large, abnormal transfers out of several Binance hot wallets within a short period, with funds moving across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, Ripple and several Layer 2 networks. Binance first said on X that its teams were urgently reviewing a "potential security issue"; founder Changpeng Zhao then wrote that the incident "looked like a hack." Binance suspended all deposits and withdrawals and revoked the affected address authorization.
Freezes followed quickly. Stablecoin issuer Tether froze more than $1.57 billion in USDT and Circle froze more than $800 million in USDC, together more than $2.38 billion; Binance co-founder Yi He said Ripple had also frozen about $200 million. Binance said about $3 billion of affected assets had been frozen so far, and gave no update on the remaining roughly $3.3 billion. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said that as of 8:30 p.m. ET on October 29, at least $5.912 billion had been confirmed stolen.
On how the attacker got in, Binance's initial investigation suggests the incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which allowed the attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Binance said it had found no evidence of any wallet private key leak, that the investigation is ongoing, and that it will publish a detailed technical report once the facts are verified. Yi He said withdrawals will be re-enabled as soon as the security scan is complete.
Yi He wrote that night: "User funds are safe. Binance will cover all hacking losses." Changpeng Zhao no longer manages Binance day to day; he wrote that, as a shareholder, he expects all user funds to be fully covered. Binance.US, which operates independently in the United States, said it was not affected by the security incident.
Markets reacted immediately. According to Reuters, bitcoin fell to a six-week low, last down 3% at $76,469.82, while ether was down more than 3% at $2,185.83; shares of crypto exchange Coinbase slid 4.8% and bitcoin holder Strategy fell nearly 6% in extended U.S. trading. Several analysts told Reuters the incident could shake investor confidence in the custody security of centralized exchanges, and that what happens next depends on how much of the stolen assets can be frozen or recovered and how soon Binance restores deposits and withdrawals.
The previous largest crypto theft occurred in February 2025, when about $1.5 billion in ether was taken from a cold wallet at the exchange Bybit; the estimated scale of the Binance incident is about four times that. Several blockchain security firms assessed that the tactics resembled past operations linked to North Korea, with intelligence firm TRM Labs saying it had traced the attack to the North Korean group "TraderTraitor"; Binance has not identified the attackers and said only that it is working with law enforcement. As of Binance's latest update, deposits and withdrawals remained suspended, with no resumption time announced.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：笔记本电脑键盘上的一枚实体比特币纪念币。本案中币安初步调查指向一名工程师的笔记本电脑可能被入侵。Satheesh Sankaran 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A physical bitcoin token on a laptop keyboard. Binance's preliminary investigation points to a possibly compromised engineer's laptop. Photo by Satheesh Sankaran, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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