Binance says $6.3b stolen in largest crypto heist ever
Photo: REUTERS
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said perpetrators stole around $6.3 billion during a “security incident” that stands as the largest crypto heist in history.
The world’s largest crypto exchange announced on Thursday that it suspended all deposits and withdrawals while freezing roughly $3 billion following the apparent hacking.
An initial investigation by Binance indicated that a hacker executed unauthorized transactions after gaining access to a compromised engineer’s laptop. The company committed to covering all financial losses, assuring users that user funds remained “safe”.
In an official statement to Al Jazeera, Binance said, “Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly. We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.”
The firm promised to release a “detailed” technical post-mortem once investigators complete their inquiry. Earlier, Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and largest shareholder, acknowledged that hackers appeared to have compromised the exchange.
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM reported with “high confidence” that North Korea’s hacking unit TraderTraitor - which investigators connect to the Lazarus Group - executed the attack. Ari Redbord, TRM’s global head of policy, labeled the cyberattack “unprecedented” and a “watershed”.
Redbord informed Al Jazeera, “When North Korea steals at this scale, the money funds weapons proliferation and other destabilising activity. That makes this a global security issue, not just a crypto theft.”
Following news of the heist, the price of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, dropped nearly 5 percent, falling below $77,000.
Sean Foley, a crypto markets expert at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Al Jazeera, “Binance is one of the largest centralised exchanges, and so a blow to confidence in them risks shocking confidence to many retail investors, which could dampen prices of crypto assets.” Foley pointed out that the security breach highlighted the inherent vulnerabilities of centralized exchanges, potentially encouraging traders to adopt decentralized alternatives.
Foley remarked, “Any assets held at a centralised exchange are only as safe as the exchange itself, and the larger the exchange’s holdings, the larger a target it becomes.”
This Binance cyberattack far surpasses the previous record crypto theft set in 2025, when North Korea’s state-backed Lazarus Group siphoned $1.5 billion from Bybit.
According to TRM’s 2026 Crypto Crime Report, cybercriminals stole $2.87 billion in crypto assets across nearly 150 hacking incidents in 2025.
CoinMarketCap data shows that Zhao established Binance in China in 2017, and the platform manages around $155 billion in assets under management, exceeding all rival exchanges.
Source: Al Jazeera (adapted)
