North Korea was blamed for an estimated $6.3 billion crypto theft–the biggest heist in history– from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange platform. Meanwhile, stablecoins like Tether, Circle, and US President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLF) emerged as key players in freezing half of the affected assets.
Reuters reported, citing US blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs and Chainalysis, that the bulk of the heist took place for around 20 minutes beginning late on Thursday and bore similarities to previous large attacks blamed on North Korea.
TRM said the attackers were able to order wallets used by Binance to be emptied and redirected to wallets controlled by the hackers. This is similar to the 2025 heist on crypto exchange Bybit; the US Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed that heist to Pyongyang.
Binance Halted Withdrawals, Analyst Blames North Korea
Binance has halted withdrawals and said it will recover losses. According to Reuters, stablecoin issuers such as Tether, Circle and Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLF) quickly froze nearly half of the stolen assets.
"TRM attributes the attack to ... North Korea’s elite hacking unit," the firm said in an analysis of the hack posted to its website.
“Both TRM and Chainalysis said they were highly confident North Korea was responsible,” Reuters.
Binance said that user funds were safe and that the company is working with other partners to freeze the remaining assets. It said that they have located about $3 billion so far.
"Your money is safe, and we're covering every loss," co-CEO Richard Teng said on X.
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Crypto Market Drag
The crypto market reacted to the development immediately, with all major cryptocurrencies slipping into the red.
Asset / Entity | Impact / Performance |
|---|---|
Bitcoin | Dropped over 3% to $76,368 (six-week low) |
Ether | Fell over 3% to $2,178 (two-month low) |
BNB | Down 5% over the past 24 hours to $709.70 |
Coinbase Global | Shares slid 4.8% |
Strategy (Bitcoin buyer) | Shares fell nearly 6% in extended US trading |
A Compromised Laptop Led To Breach
In an statement Binance also said that the breach may have occur security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, noting an estimated total impact sits at around $6.3 billion.
The exchange emphasised that the compromised laptop allowed an attacker to submit withdrawal transactions, gaining access to a service container.
It Could Be Biggest Crypto Heist In History
According to analysts, Binance’s security breach could be the world's biggest crypto heist.
"It's the biggest hack in history," said Aravind Srinivasan, head of large crypto market maker GSR's systematic OTC business, told Reuters.
The development may have a significant impact on the crypto ecosystem beyond the potential loss of assets. It may further impact people’s interest in digital assets, which were already under pressure due to higher US interest rates and softer demand from exchange-traded fund buyers.
Binance has 335 million registered users globally and had about $162.8 billion in assets under custody as of the exchange's 2025 annual report, Reuters reported.