Binance Loses $6.3 Billion in Half an Hour After Hackers Linked to North Korea Compromise an Engineer's Laptop

Attackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance in roughly 30 minutes, according to the Financial Times. Binance is the world's largest crypto exchange, and the FT reported that the exchange said an engineer's laptop had been compromised. MercoPress reported that the US Secret Service is investigating with other agencies. Blockchain analytics firms, including TRM Labs, link the attack to a hacking group tied to North Korea. Binance suspended withdrawals after what it called a "complex attack."

The Japanese wire service Jiji Press described the attack as complex and difficult to trace. The Japan Times argued that the theft exposes a risk that exchanges cannot fully solve, because stolen digital assets can move beyond recovery however strong an exchange's defenses are. The previous largest theft, North Korea's $1.5 billion theft from Bybit in February 2025, was about a quarter of this size.

Recovery depends on which assets were taken. CoinDesk reported that Tether, Circle and other issuers moved within hours to block billions of dollars in stolen tokens. Legal experts it quoted question whether issuers would act as quickly for smaller victims, and they warned that freezing assets is different from returning them. The US State Department called North Korean cybercrime "a global problem."

Bitcoin itself fell less than many traders expected. One strategist told CNBC that investors distinguished between a breach at a centralized exchange and the security of the Bitcoin network.