EN
Español
Português (Brasil)
Türkçe
Tiếng Việt
Bahasa Indonesia
Polski
Čeština
Română
Slovenčina
Magyar30 Oct 2026
Binance says a compromised engineer's laptop let attackers push through unauthorized withdrawals worth about $6.3 billion, with roughly $3 billion frozen so far. TRM Labs, Chainalysis and ZachXBT tie the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor group, and Standard Chartered expects more short-term price pressure.
Exchanges TradeReviewed News Desk
Binance has given its first detailed account of the security incident that shook crypto markets overnight, and blockchain investigators now point to North Korea. In a statement on X, quoted by Kryptomagazin, the exchange said its initial investigation suggests a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop gave an attacker access to a service container, which was then used to submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Binance said it found no evidence of a wallet private key leak.
How big is the Binance hack?
Binance puts the estimated total impact at around $6.3 billion. Working with blockchain partners, it says about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far. The exchange says it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company funds, that user funds are safe, and that it will publish an updated Proof of Reserves once remediation is complete. As a precaution it temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals, revoked the affected address authorisation and brought in law enforcement and blockchain intelligence firms.
According to Portfolio.hu, Tether froze close to $1.57 billion and Circle more than $800 million of related stablecoins, while Ripple blocked about $200 million.
Who is behind it: TraderTraitor
As Cointelegraph reports, TRM Labs attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group with “high confidence”, citing on-chain and off-chain intelligence. On-chain investigator ZachXBT said funds from the Binance hack and the earlier Bitget exploit were commingled at the same address after moving through THORChain, which he said indicates the same actor is likely behind both. Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin also pointed to TraderTraitor and put the haul at $6.4 billion, slightly above Binance’s own estimate.
US authorities have previously linked TraderTraitor to the February 2025 Bybit hack, and the FBI joined US and Japanese investigators in attributing the more than $300 million DMM Bitcoin theft in May 2024 to the same actors. The FBI says the group targets company employees through social engineering, which fits Binance’s description of a compromised staff laptop. Per Portfolio.hu, the attackers hit wallets on ten blockchains and moved most of the funds within about 20 minutes.
Market reaction and Standard Chartered’s view
Bitcoin fell more than 3% to a six-week low of $76,368 in Asian trading, and ether slipped to a two-month low of $2,178, Portfolio.hu reported. Cointelegraph data showed BNB down more than 8% over 24 hours, with DeFi tokens also lower: AAVE fell 11.3% to $118.54 and UNI dropped 10.4% to $6.48.
Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research Geoffrey Kendrick told Cointelegraph he expects further negative price action in the near term. “Only after assets are unfrozen and more detail of the hack emerges will we find a new base,” he said. Longer term, he argues the breach should push more trading from centralized to decentralized exchanges and kept his $100 target for UNI by 2030, calling the hack “another reason why that forecast may end up being too low.”
What it means for traders
- Expect elevated volatility and thinner liquidity while Binance deposits and withdrawals stay paused. Rely only on official Binance channels for reopening times; scam “recovery” offers usually follow big hacks.
- Frozen stablecoins limit part of the damage, but roughly half of the estimated impact has not been reported as frozen.
- Spreading funds across more than one venue reduces single-exchange risk. Compare security and reserves in our crypto exchange comparison, read how we test exchanges, and see our BingX review (ranked number 1) and OKX review (number 2).
This is a developing story. For information only, not investment advice.
Follow TradeReviewed on X and our Telegram channel: you hear crypto and trading news here first.
Related reviews
Sources
- Cointelegraph: North Korea's TraderTraitor linked to $6.3B Binance hack
- Cointelegraph: Binance hack could accelerate shift to DEXs: Standard Chartered
- Kryptomagazin (Binance statement on X): Krádež desaťročia: Binance zasiahol hack v sume 6,3 miliardy dolárov
- Portfolio.hu: Binance hack: market reaction
News is for information only and is not financial advice. More crypto news
You'll hear it here first
Get crypto news first on our Telegram channel.