Hackers steal $6.3 billion from Binance in record heist blamed on North Korea - The Detroit News
Hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, in a record theft attributed to North Korea, causing crypto prices to fall and forcing the exchange to halt withdrawals.
The breach occurred late Thursday and unfolded in approximately 20 minutes, according to blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis, who attributed the attack to North Korea's elite hacking unit. Binance immediately halted withdrawals and assured customers that their funds were safe, with the company covering all losses.
"This was a complex attack, and we are doing all we can in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it," Binance said in a post on X. Co-CEO Richard Teng added that "company funds" would cover the losses, though the investigation has not yet attributed responsibility to any specific individual.
Stolen Assets Frozen
About half of the stolen $6.3 billion has been frozen by stablecoin issuers including Tether, Circle, and the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial. Tether froze nearly $1.57 billion, Circle froze more than $800 million, and World Liberty Financial froze $27 million in stablecoins and about $2 million worth of its own tokens.
Crypto firm Ripple also froze roughly $200 million in funds related to the incident. Binance has located about $3 billion of the affected assets and expects to resume withdrawal services within the next 45 hours, though the status of the remaining $3.3 billion remains unclear.
Market Impact
The hack sent cryptocurrency prices tumbling, with Bitcoin hitting a six-week low of $76,368 and Ether falling more than 3% to a two-month low of $2,178 before markets stabilized. BNB, Binance's native token, was down 5% over the past 24 hours at $709.70.
"It's the biggest hack in history," Aravind Srinivasan at market maker GSR said as crypto prices fell broadly.
Related
