The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been hit by what experts are calling the biggest crypto hack in history. The Binance crypto hack of 2026 saw roughly $6.3 billion worth of digital assets drained from the exchange’s hot wallets on the evening of 29 October 2026, in an attack that blockchain investigators have blamed on North Korea. The Binance hack dwarfs every previous crypto theft, including the record $1.5 billion Bybit hack of February 2025, and has sent shockwaves through global crypto markets.
Binance confirmed the security breach in a late-Thursday update, saying it had worked with partners to freeze around $3 billion of the stolen assets so far. The exchange’s co-CEO, Yi He, said the company would cover “all hacking losses” and insisted user funds are safe. Withdrawals were temporarily suspended on several networks while investigators traced where the money went.
How the Binance Hack Happened
According to Binance’s initial investigation, the security incident may have started with a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. The attacker allegedly used that access to reach a service container inside Binance’s infrastructure and submit a wave of unauthorised withdrawal transactions.
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs reported that on 29 October, at around 20:05 UTC, approximately $6.36 billion began moving out of Binance wallets across ten different blockchains — including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, Solana, Arbitrum and Polygon. Most of the money left within about twenty minutes, an astonishing speed for a theft of this size.
Security researchers found that on the Ethereum network, the attacker used a technique called EIP-7702 delegation to turn a Binance hot wallet into a “sweeper” they controlled, with 50 pre-signed authorisations prepared in advance. The address that triggered the withdrawals had been funded through the Tornado Cash privacy mixer in the days before the attack. On-chain sleuths quickly labelled the suspect addresses “Binance Hot Wallet Exploiter.”
$3 Billion Frozen as Stablecoin Issuers Step In
While the headline figure of the Binance hack is enormous, a large share of the loot may never be spendable. Stablecoin issuers moved within hours: Tether froze more than $1.56 billion in USDT, and Circle froze over $800 million in USDC, acting in coordination with law enforcement. Arbitrum’s Security Council also froze thousands of ETH and millions of ARB tokens on its network.
All told, roughly $2.7–3 billion of the stolen assets has been frozen — the frozen portion included some $2.3 billion in USDT and USDC stablecoins. That still leaves about $3.3 billion unaccounted for, with no update yet from Binance on its status.
Arkham Intelligence estimated the hacker’s wallets at one point held more than $5.7 billion in stolen crypto, including nearly $1.5 billion in bitcoin and $900 million in ether. The remaining funds were moved through decentralised trading and lending platforms as the attackers tried to cash out.
North Korea Blamed Again: The TraderTraitor Link
Blockchain analytics firms including TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Blockaid, along with independent investigator ZachXBT, have pointed the finger at North Korea over the Binance hack. TRM Labs attributed the North Korea crypto hack to “TraderTraitor,” an elite North Korean state-sponsored hacking unit — the same group blamed for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025.
“This is the biggest crypto hack in history,” Ido Ben-Natan, co-founder and CEO of crypto security firm Blockaid, told CoinDesk.
Just two days before the breach, on 27 October, Binance had said its security team repelled several attacks linked to North Korea — suggesting the exchange knew it was being targeted. Binance itself had also been hacked before: in 2019, attackers stole 7,000 BTC (worth about $40 million at the time), and the exchange covered the losses from its SAFU emergency fund.
Binance Says User Funds Are Safe
Binance founder and former chief executive Changpeng Zhao — who no longer runs the company but remains its largest shareholder — posted on X that it “does look like a hack on Binance” and that he expects user funds to be “fully covered.” Co-CEO Yi He echoed the promise, saying the platform would cover all hacking losses.
Binance said it was investigating a potential security issue, then suspended withdrawals on multiple networks as a precaution. Before the hack, the exchange held roughly $144 billion in assets on its platform, according to DefiLlama data — meaning the stolen amount, while record-breaking, represents a fraction of its total holdings.
Crypto markets fell sharply on the news, with about 3 per cent of total crypto market capitalisation wiped out, bringing the remaining market down to roughly $2.63 trillion.
What It Means for Pakistani Crypto Users
Pakistan has one of the fastest-growing crypto user bases in the world, and Binance is by far the most popular exchange among Pakistani traders. For local users, the key questions after the Binance $6 billion theft are simple: are their funds safe, and can they withdraw? Binance has said user funds are safe and that it will cover the losses — but traders should expect heightened scrutiny, possible withdrawal delays, and fresh calls for tighter security across the industry after a Binance hack of this scale.
The Binance hack also lands at an interesting moment for Pakistan: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has said Pakistan can become a major crypto hub by 2030, and the exchange’s Binance Qafila 2026 programme has targeted young Pakistani users with $1 million in rewards. A breach this large will inevitably raise questions from regulators about how exchanges safeguard customer money.
The investigation is still developing, and figures may change as more on-chain analysis comes in. What is already clear is that this theft has rewritten the record books — and the industry will be studying how it happened for years.
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