Binance has been hit by what is being called the largest crypto hack ever. According to Binance itself, an estimated $6.3 billion in assets was affected, and about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino says Tether froze more than $1.56 billion, and Circle chief Jeremy Allaire cites more than 800 million USDC.
Binance says user funds are safe and that all losses will be covered from the SAFU fund and company resources. Co-CEO Yi He confirmed this. Deposits are working normally. Withdrawals are paused while the security of the withdrawal process and related addresses is upgraded. Binance expects to resume within 48 hours, but describes that as an estimate rather than a confirmed reopening.
A possibly compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer is being examined as a potential entry point, from which an attacker could have submitted unauthorized withdrawals through a service container. So far there is no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked. Authorization for the affected address has been revoked, and Binance is working with law enforcement and blockchain analysis firms to trace the funds. A report on the root cause and an updated proof of reserves will follow after the investigation.
TRM Labs links the attack “with high confidence” to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. Binance has not confirmed this, and Fortune calls the attribution unconfirmed.
The market reacted immediately. On Friday morning Bitcoin fell about 4.5% to around $76,700, Ether dropped 5.2% to about $2,190 and BNB lost 7.1% to roughly $699. More than $1.5 billion in leveraged positions was liquidated within 24 hours.
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Sources:
- CyberInsider: Binance links $6.3 billion security incident to compromised laptop
- The National: Bitcoin slides below $77,000 after Binance hit by biggest crypto theft on record
- Fortune: The $6.3 billion Binance hack, what we know so far
- Forbes: Binance says $6.3 billion impacted in record crypto hack, suspends withdrawals
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