According to The Guardian, the incident, which emerged on 29 October 2026, has led the exchange to suspend all deposits and withdrawals while its security teams secure wallet infrastructure and trace affected assets with support from law enforcement and industry partners. Around USD 3 billion has been located so far, while Binance has not provided an update on the remaining USD 3.3 billion. Company leadership has stated that all user losses will be covered.
How the breach occurred
Binance has not explicitly confirmed that funds were stolen, although TRM Labs and Chainalysis estimate that more than USD 6 billion was taken. According to the exchange’s initial investigation, the breach may have started with a compromised laptop belonging to one of its engineers. This allowed an attacker to access one of its systems and make unauthorised withdrawals.
TRM Labs has attributed the attack with high confidence to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-backed hacking unit, and Chainalysis has reached the same conclusion. According to the FBI, North Korea was behind the theft of approximately USD 1.5 billion in virtual assets from a Japan-based exchange in 2025, which had stood as the industry record. If confirmed, the Binance incident would exceed that figure more than fourfold.
Asset freezes across the ecosystem
Recovery efforts have extended to stablecoin issuers and other crypto firms. Tether has frozen nearly USD 1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, and Circle has frozen more than USD 800 million. World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to the US President and his family, said it worked with custodian BitGo to freeze stolen funds. Binance has separately reported that USD 27 million in stablecoins and about USD 2 million in World Liberty tokens have been frozen. Binance.US, which operates as a separate exchange, and Coinbase have both said they were not affected.
Binance runs a secure asset fund held entirely in bitcoin, designed to protect user assets in the event of a security breach. According to its 2025 annual report, the exchange has 335 million registered users and held about USD 162.8 billion in assets under custody.
Markets responded in early Asian trading on 30 October 2026. Bitcoin fell more than 3% to a six-week low of USD 76.368, while shares in Coinbase Global dropped 4.8% and those of Strategy fell nearly 6% in extended US trading.
Analysts noted that crypto markets were already under pressure from higher US interest rates and softer demand from exchange-traded fund buyers. Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, based in Hong Kong, said the breach may further dampen risk appetite and prompt investors to reassess the safety of assets held on centralised exchanges, including counterparty, solvency, and liquidity risks. In addition, Bernardo Brites, the CEO of Trace Finance, said AI is accelerating the discovery of vulnerabilities and suggested users may move away from smaller and mid-sized exchanges unable to cover a hack of significant size.
The breach adds to a series of thefts affecting the sector. TRM Labs data shows attackers stole USD 2.9 billion in crypto across nearly 150 attacks in 2025, and in September 2026, Bitget reported that roughly USD 350 million had been stolen from its platform. Authorities have warned that organised crime groups are increasingly using cryptocurrencies to move funds across borders outside the traditional financial system.
