Binance says about $6.3bn was stolen in a security incident, the biggest crypto heist on record, and has suspended withdrawals as Bitcoin fell 5 per cent.

Aljazeera

Published 30 Oct 2026, 08:18 GMT

3 min read

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Binance Suspends Withdrawals After Record $6.3bn Crypto Theft

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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has said that about $6.3bn in funds have been stolen in a “security incident” that looks to be the biggest crypto heist in history.

The world’s largest crypto exchange said on Thursday that it had suspended all deposits and withdrawals and that about $3bn in funds had been frozen following the apparent hacking.

Binance said an initial investigation suggested that a hacker had been able to make unauthorised transactions after gaining access to an engineer’s compromised laptop.

The company said it would cover all losses and user funds were “safe.”

“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly,” Binance said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

“We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.”

The company added that it would share a “detailed” technical post-mortem once investigations were complete.

TRM, a blockchain intelligence firm, assessed with “high confidence” that the attack was carried out by North Korea’s hacking unit TraderTraitor.

“We base this assessment on robust on and off-chain intelligence sources,” TRM said in a report on the incident.

Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and largest shareholder, said earlier that the exchange appeared to have been hacked.

“I don’t manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered,” Zhao, who no longer manages Binance’s operations after stepping down as CEO in 2023, said in a post on X.

The price of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, fell about 5 percent following the incident, dropping below $77,000.

“Binance is one of the largest centralised exchanges, and so a blow to confidence in them risks shocking confidence to many retail investors, which could dampen prices of crypto assets,” Sean Foley, an expert in crypto markets at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Al Jazeera.

Foley said the attack highlighted the risks of centralised exchanges and could spur more traders to use decentralised alternatives.

“Any assets held at a centralised exchange are only as safe as the exchange itself, and the larger the exchange’s holdings, the larger a target it becomes,” Foley said.

The hacking looks to be the largest-ever theft of crypto assets by far, dwarfing the $1.5bn crypto heist carried out by the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group in 2025.

Cybercriminals stole $2.87bn in crypto assets in nearly 150 hacking incidents in 2025, according to the 2026 Crypto Crime Report produced by market intelligence firm TRM.

Binance, founded in China by Zhao in 2017, has about $155bn in assets under its management, more than any other exchange, according to CoinMarketCap.

Aljazeera

Binance Reports $6.3 Billion Stolen in Largest Crypto Theft Ever

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