Hackers have pulled off a staggering $6.3 billion cryptocurrency heist targeting Binance, shaking confidence in one of the world's biggest digital asset exchanges and sending crypto prices tumbling. U.S. analysts suspect North Korea was behind the attack.
The theft, believed to be the biggest in cryptocurrency history, raises an uncomfortable question for an industry handling billions of dollars in digital wealth: just how safe is the money?
Unlike traditional currencies, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin exist entirely in digital form. They can be bought, sold, invested and transferred across borders without relying on the conventional banking system.
What began as an alternative to traditional finance has grown into a global industry attracting individual investors, major financial institutions and businesses. But the latest attack exposes a serious vulnerability: digital assets worth billions can be stolen without a single bank vault being opened.
The attack took just 20 minutes late on Thursday, according to U.S. blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis.
Both firms said they were highly confident that North Korea was responsible, pointing to similarities with previous major cryptocurrency thefts.
TRM Labs said hackers moved digital assets out of Binance wallets and into accounts they controlled, using methods resembling the 2025 attack on cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, which the FBI attributed to North Korea.
Pyongyang has long faced accusations of using state-linked hacking groups to steal money and gather intelligence, allegations it has repeatedly denied.
North Korean diplomatic missions in Geneva and China did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Binance is now racing to recover the stolen funds and reassure customers that their money is safe.
The exchange said approximately $3 billion had already been traced or frozen, with several major cryptocurrency companies joining efforts to stop the hackers from moving the assets further.
Tether blocked nearly $1.57 billion, while Circle froze more than $800 million. Ripple also blocked around $200 million.
World Liberty Financial worked with custodian BitGo to freeze additional assets. Binance co-founder Yi He said another $27 million in stablecoins and approximately $2 million in World Liberty tokens had been frozen.
But recovering the money could prove far more complicated than stopping its movement.
Unlike traditional bank transfers, cryptocurrency transactions recorded on a blockchain generally cannot simply be reversed. Once stolen assets have been transferred, tracing and recovering them can involve multiple companies and jurisdictions.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng has promised that customers will not bear the losses, with the exchange pledging to use its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and other company resources.
The company expects withdrawal services to resume within 48 hours but says it has not yet established who carried out the attack.
For anyone who has never owned bitcoin, a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency theft might sound like a problem confined to the digital world. But the implications extend further.
Cryptocurrencies are increasingly connected to mainstream finance through investment funds, publicly traded companies and payment services. Their value can affect businesses, investors and financial products far beyond specialist crypto trading platforms.
And although cryptocurrencies are digital, the financial losses are very real.
People can buy them using ordinary money, hold them as investments or use certain digital tokens to transfer value internationally.
The technology behind cryptocurrencies allows transactions to be recorded on shared digital networks known as blockchains. But many investors still rely on centralised exchanges such as Binance to hold and trade their assets.
That creates a familiar financial problem in a new technological setting: if the company safeguarding your money is breached, who pays the price?
The latest attack is particularly significant because Binance reported 335 million registered users worldwide and approximately $162.8 billion in assets under custody in its 2025 annual report.
Its $1 billion customer protection fund, held entirely in bitcoin, is designed to cover losses arising from security incidents.
The $6.3 billion theft is more than six times the size of that reserve, putting the spotlight on Binance's promise to compensate affected customers.
The shock quickly spread through cryptocurrency markets.
Bitcoin fell to a six-week low of $76,368, while ether dropped more than 3 per cent to a two-month low of $2,178 before prices stabilised.
BNB, the token originally launched as Binance Coin, lost 5 per cent over 24 hours, falling to $709.70, according to CoinGecko.
The damage was not limited to digital currencies.
Shares in U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which said it was unaffected by the attack, fell 4.8 per cent, while bitcoin investor Strategy dropped nearly 6 per cent in extended U.S. trading.
The sell-off added to existing pressure on cryptocurrencies from higher U.S. interest rates and weaker demand among exchange-traded fund investors.
Perhaps the most striking detail is how such an enormous theft may have begun.
Binance's preliminary investigation suggests that a compromised laptop belonging to one of its engineers could have given the attackers access to an internal system.
That access may have allowed the hackers to carry out unauthorised withdrawals.
The exchange said its security team was examining the device to determine how the attackers entered its network.
Mark Karpeles, former head of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox, suggested the hackers may have obtained private keys controlling at least two Binance wallets.
Private keys are essentially digital credentials that allow cryptocurrency assets to be accessed and transferred. In the wrong hands, they can give attackers control over vast sums of money.
Karpeles said Binance appeared to have distributed its assets across several systems to limit the damage from a single breach.
Even those safeguards, however, were not enough to prevent a multibillion-dollar loss.
The Binance attack is the latest warning that cryptocurrency's rapid expansion has brought enormous financial opportunities alongside serious security risks.
According to TRM Labs, hackers stole approximately $2.9 billion across nearly 150 cryptocurrency attacks in 2025.
More recently, exchange Bitget reported the theft of around $350 million in September.
Tim Sun, senior researcher at Hong Kong-based HashKey Group, warned that the Binance breach could discourage investors from taking risks and prompt them to reconsider whether major exchanges are safe places to store their assets.
For an industry seeking greater acceptance from mainstream investors, that loss of confidence could be as damaging as the theft itself.
The central question now is not only whether Binance can recover the stolen billions, but whether cryptocurrency exchanges can convince customers that their digital wealth is secure.
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