Binance hit by crypto history's biggest theft, North Korean hackers suspected

Around $6.3 billion worth of digital assets have been stolen from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Binance confirmed the incident on Thursday, which is being called the largest theft in the history of cryptocurrency.

According to the company's initial investigation, attackers gained access to a DevOps engineer's laptop, broke into a service container, and transferred funds without authorization.

According to the US blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs, the hackers moved funds from wallets across 10 different blockchains, with most of the funds transferred within about 20 minutes.

TRM Labs and another crypto analysis firm have both suspected the involvement of TraderTraitor, a hacking group linked to North Korea.

Binance says nearly half of the affected funds have been frozen with the help of other crypto platforms. The company says users' funds are safe and that it will bear the entire loss from the theft itself.

Previously, the roughly $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit exchange in 2025 was considered the largest. Following the incident, the price of bitcoin fell to around $76,000, while the price of Binance's own token, BNB, dropped by more than 5 percent.

Cybersecurity firm Check Point's expert Jayant Dave has warned that banks and financial institutions that use automated systems to move funds also face the risk of similar attacks.