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Morning Edition · Sunday, November 1, 2026Published at 1:14 AM EDT · New York
FBI blames North Korea's TraderTraitor for $6.3 billion Binance theft as Trump says "we don't know"
Binance says it will cover about 90% of the loss. The FBI has asked decentralized finance operators to block hundreds of wallet addresses, and Chainalysis says the attackers have already used thousands.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said a North Korea-linked group known as TraderTraitor carried out the theft of more than $6 billion in digital assets from Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange. The Financial Times described the theft as a record and reported that other exchanges are tightening security. In an October 30 statement, Binance put the total impact at $6.3 billion and said about $3 billion had been frozen. The exchange said it will cover about 90% of the loss and restore withdrawals.
The FBI is relying on other parties to help stop the funds from moving. Its notice listed hundreds of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana addresses and asked operators in decentralized finance (DeFi), the trading and lending services that run without a central intermediary, to block them. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis told CoinDesk that the attackers have already used "thousands" of addresses and that it expects the number to keep rising. The FBI ties TraderTraitor to the $1.5 billion theft from Bybit last year.
The White House has not adopted the FBI's finding. At a Halloween event at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said investigators were looking into the theft and added, "We don't know if it's North Korea." In its morning digest, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported that the FBI had blamed TraderTraitor and that Trump had disputed the statement. Russian outlets gave the split between the president and his own investigators equal weight with the attribution.
The market damage was limited. Bitcoin traded near $77,170 early on October 31, about 39% below its record high. US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded about $643 million of net outflows on October 30. CNBC noted that bitcoin fell less than it had after earlier exchange hacks, because the attack hit a custodian and not the Bitcoin network.
Part of a tracked trend
State Hackers Drain Crypto Custodians
State-backed hacking groups will keep taking billions from centralized crypto venues. Each theft pushes authorities to make private protocols block and monitor addresses, which makes crypto access more permissioned and more surveilled.
Veracity: Corroborated
80/100- If true, who benefits
If the attribution holds, Pyongyang gains hard currency outside the sanctions system. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also gains a case for making decentralized-finance operators screen addresses, and blockchain analytics firms such as Chainalysis sell that screening.
- The nuance
The FBI statement is explicit but does not include forensic evidence. The edition places Trump's remark at a Mar-a-Lago Halloween event, but The Hill reports he made it in the Oval Office. The edition also leaves out that Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in 2025, and that his family's World Liberty Financial stablecoin was used in a $2 billion investment in Binance.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
Synthesized from: Financial Times Technology · CoinDesk · The Japan Times (Business) · Kommersant
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Comments
1Nov 1, 5:14 AM
Covering 90% of $6.3 billion leaves users bearing about $630 million, while the roughly $3.3 billion not frozen is what the FBI's DeFi address blocklist still has to contain.