Crypto giant Binance hit by 'largest hack in history'

Key points

• Binance says $6.3bn of digital assets were affected by what has been called the largest hack in history.
• About half of the assets have been frozen with help from other platforms, and Binance will cover all losses.
• TRM Labs attributed the incident to North Korean hacking unit TraderTraitor with high confidence.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said on Thursday that $6.3bn (£4.7bn) of digital assets have been impacted by what has been described as the largest hack in history. The world's biggest crypto exchange said about half of those assets have been frozen with the help of other platforms, and that it will cover all losses.

Early checks suggest the incident may have involved an engineer's laptop that had been compromised, allowing an attacker to make unauthorised withdrawals, Binance said. The incident concerns Binance.com; the smaller platform Binance.US said it is not affected.

North Korea link assessed

AI-powered investigations company TRM Labs has attributed the incident to a North Korean hacking unit called TraderTraitor. TRM said it made the judgment with high confidence and that several elements resemble earlier North Korean-linked incidents, including the Bybit hack.

TRM chief policy officer Ari Redbord told the BBC the Binance hack is a watershed moment unlike anything the industry has seen. The attacker still holds an enormous sum of stolen assets, he added, meaning efforts to trace and recover the funds are far from over. Binance did not directly respond to BBC queries about potential links to North Korea but said it is working with law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of the criminals and bring them to justice.

We make this judgment with high confidence

— TRM Labs

Freezes and market reaction

Binance co-chief executive Yi He thanked crypto issuers for freezing assets and said withdrawals are currently disabled until the environment is confirmed to be secure. Tether and Circle said they have frozen a total of about $2.4bn in response to the potential hack. Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said his firm has frozen more than $800m, while Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said his firm has frozen around $1.6bn.

World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, said it worked with partners to freeze stolen funds. Coinbase said it was unaffected and was monitoring the situation. Bitcoin dropped by more than 4% following the alerts, and Ethereum and Solana also fell sharply.