North Korean Hackers Hit Binance in Record $6.3 Billion Heist

The FBI has linked malicious actors from North Korea to a massive cryptocurrency heist targeting Binance on or about October 29, 2026. The agency, which labeled the operation “TraderTraitor,” reports that more than $6.3 billion in virtual assets were stolen. According to The Verge, the FBI, USSS, and IRS-CI observed the attackers converting stolen tokens primarily into Ethereum to prepare for further laundering via DeFi and instant swap services.

Reporting from Ars Technica indicates the breach may have started when hackers compromised an engineer’s laptop, though Binance noted that further investigation revealed additional points of breach. While Binance stated that private keys were not compromised, analysts at Elliptic reported that attackers successfully converted approximately $3.3 billion into non-freezable assets. Conversely, Binance claimed about $3 billion in affected assets, mainly stablecoins, were frozen. Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, confirmed his company froze roughly $1.5 billion of USDT, while Circle head Jeremy Allaire noted $800 million of his company's assets were involved.

Binance co-chief executives Richard Teng and Yi He assured customers that losses would be covered. The company stated it reserved over $6.34 billion in company funds for the incident, including $5 billion already held in the impacted token assets. Co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) noted on X that the company holds more than $1 billion in shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help manage the remaining gap.

This event follows a pattern of North Korean cyber activity; Chainalysis data cited by Ars Technica shows North Korean hackers stole approximately $2 billion in crypto in 2025, a 50% increase over the previous year. This includes a $1.5 billion attack on the Bybit exchange last year.