North Korea-linked hackers steal $6.3bn from Binance in record heist (opens the source in a new tab)
- Hackers drained Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, on Thursday, taking $6.3bn by its own estimate within minutes. Researchers tie the attack to North Korea's state-backed TraderTraitor unit, also blamed for the earlier record Bybit heist.
- Binance says the way in was an engineer's compromised laptop, though co-chief executive Richard Teng says the attack was more complex and more breach points have surfaced. Paused withdrawals revived memories of FTX online.
- Tether and Circle froze stolen Stablecoin A cryptocurrency designed to hold a fixed value, usually one US dollar, backed by reserves. fast, catching close to half the haul; the rest was swapped into coins nobody can freeze. Founder Changpeng Zhao says user funds are safe and losses will be covered.
Why it matters Crypto sells itself as money no one can seize, yet the only part of this loot that was recovered sat in coins a company could freeze. The heist tests both Binance's security pitch and the industry's case as a safe place to keep savings.
Other side Binance can absorb the loss and says customers are whole, and the record freeze shows the industry's response tools are getting faster. A rich, well-run state hacking unit may simply be beyond what any single firm can stop.