Binance has said that about $6.3bn in funds were stolen in what it called a “security incident”, a theft that would stand as the largest in cryptocurrency history. The world’s biggest exchange said on Thursday that it had suspended all deposits and withdrawals, with roughly $3bn frozen after the apparent hack.
An initial investigation suggested a hacker made unauthorised transactions after gaining access to an engineer’s compromised laptop, the company said. Binance said it would cover every loss and that user funds were “safe”, adding that its teams were working around the clock to resolve the matter and that it was co-operating with law enforcement to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. It told Al Jazeera it would publish a detailed technical account once the investigation was complete.
Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and largest shareholder, had said earlier that the exchange appeared to have been hacked.
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM attributed the attack with “high confidence” to North Korea’s hacking unit TraderTraitor, which investigators have tied to the Lazarus Group. Ari Redbord, the firm’s global head of policy, called the attack unprecedented and a watershed. He said thefts on this scale fund weapons proliferation and other destabilising activity, which makes it a global security issue rather than only a crypto theft.
The price of Bitcoin fell about 5% after the heist, slipping below $77,000. Sean Foley, who studies crypto markets at Macquarie University in Sydney, said a knock to confidence in Binance risked unsettling retail investors and dampening prices across crypto assets. Assets held at a centralised exchange, he said, are only as safe as the exchange itself and the larger its holdings, the bigger a target it becomes. The episode could push more traders towards decentralised alternatives, he added.
The theft dwarfs the previous record, set in 2025 when the Lazarus Group pulled off a $1.5bn heist on Bybit. Across nearly 150 incidents that year, cybercriminals stole $2.87bn in crypto, according to TRM’s 2026 Crypto Crime Report. Binance, founded in China by Zhao in 2017, holds about $155bn in assets under management, more than any other exchange, according to CoinMarketCap.
