Binance hit by $6.3 billion breach, the largest crypto theft on record

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has suffered the biggest theft the industry has ever recorded. Roughly $6.3 billion in digital assets was taken, and investigators link the attack to North Korea.

What happened

The attackers compromised the infrastructure Binance uses to sign transactions from its hot wallets, the online wallets that handle day-to-day withdrawals. Among the assets taken were 18,270 bitcoin, worth about $1.4 billion on their own.

Binance says it has set aside $6.34 billion to cover losses and has pledged to reimburse customers in full. The FBI and the Secret Service are working with the exchange as investigators trace the stolen funds. Binance has set a 48-hour target for restoring withdrawals, while bitcoin deposits have stayed open throughout. Around $3.3 billion of the stolen assets is estimated to remain unrecovered.

Background

Exchanges keep most customer funds in offline cold storage and a smaller share in hot wallets, so that withdrawals can be processed quickly. That convenience makes hot wallets, and the systems that authorize payments from them, the most exposed part of any exchange. Groups linked to North Korea have been blamed for many of the largest crypto thefts of recent years.

Why it matters

The scale of the breach puts exchange security, and the question of who pays when it fails, back at the center of the industry debate. Binance’s reimbursement pledge is meant to make sure customers do not carry the loss. The practical tests come next: whether withdrawals resume on schedule, and whether the exchange’s next reserve update shows customer balances fully backed.