Binance has suspended deposits and withdrawals after saying about $6.3bn (£4.7bn) in cryptocurrency was stolen in what appears to be the largest crypto heist ever recorded.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange said on Thursday that approximately $3bn had been frozen following the apparent hack. It said an initial investigation indicated that the attacker had gained access to a compromised laptop belonging to one of its engineers and then used it to authorise unauthorised transactions.
Binance said it would cover any losses and insisted that customer funds were “safe”.
“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly,” the exchange said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
“We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.”
The company said it would publish a “detailed” technical post-mortem after its investigation had concluded.
Blockchain intelligence company TRM said it had assessed “with high confidence” that the attack was carried out by TraderTraitor, a hacking unit linked to North Korea.
“We base this assessment on robust on and off-chain intelligence sources,” TRM said in a report about the incident.
Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and largest shareholder, said earlier that the exchange appeared to have been hacked. Zhao stepped down as chief executive in 2023 and no longer manages Binance’s operations.
“I don’t manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered,” he said in a post on X.
The incident contributed to a fall of about 5% in the price of Bitcoin, the world’s most widely traded cryptocurrency. Bitcoin dropped below $77,000.
Sean Foley, a crypto-markets expert at Macquarie University in Sydney, said the attack could damage trust in centralised exchanges and affect wider investor confidence.
“Binance is one of the largest centralised exchanges, and so a blow to confidence in them risks shocking confidence to many retail investors, which could dampen prices of crypto assets,” he told Al Jazeera.
Foley said the incident might encourage more traders to consider decentralised alternatives, while underlining the security risks associated with holding funds on a centralised platform.
“Any assets held at a centralised exchange are only as safe as the exchange itself, and the larger the exchange’s holdings, the larger a target it becomes,” he said.
The suspected theft would be considerably larger than the previous biggest crypto heist, the $1.5bn taken in 2025 by the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group.
According to TRM’s 2026 Crypto Crime Report, cybercriminals stole $2.87bn in cryptocurrency across nearly 150 hacking incidents during 2025.
Binance was founded in China by Zhao in 2017. CoinMarketCap estimates that it manages about $155bn in assets, more than any other cryptocurrency exchange.
