Binance Resumes Withdrawals After $6.3 Billion Hack

Binance says it has replaced 95% of the stolen crypto and is reopening withdrawals. The FBI blames North Korea’s TraderTraitor unit. Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, is bringing withdrawals back after what analysts call the largest crypto theft ever. The exchange said it covered 95% of the roughly $6.3 billion in stolen tokens and planned to restart withdrawals on Sunday. The first phase covers 15 assets, including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Dogecoin. Binance said the rest will follow as it sources the remaining tokens.

$6.36B Binance Hack

Binance reported the attack on Thursday, October 29. Most of the theft played out in about 20 minutes. TRM Labs puts the total slightly higher, at about $6.36 billion across ten blockchains.

Binance then paused withdrawals while it rebuilt the affected systems. Deposits kept working normally. The hack hit Binance.com. The smaller Binance.US was not affected.

Key Details

Here are the main numbers:

How Binance paid. The exchange bought replacement tokens using its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), part of its Futures Insurance Fund, and its corporate treasury. Co-CEO Yi He said half of the SAFU fund would be used. Binance has promised to refill it to about $1 billion.

The remaining 5% is harder. Those assets are less liquid, so Binance may need more time to buy them in the amounts required.

How the attack happened. Early on, Binance pointed to a compromised engineer’s laptop. Co-CEO Richard Teng called it a complex attack that also used malware built to erase its own traces. Binance later said its investigation had found additional points of breach beyond a single laptop.

Who Is Behind It?

The FBI said on Saturday that TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored unit, was responsible. It also said it expects the stolen assets to be laundered further. TRM Labs and Chainalysis had both pointed to the same group earlier in the week. TRM said it had high confidence in the attribution.

TraderTraitor is not new. The FBI blamed the same group for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025.

The picture is not fully settled. President Donald Trump said Saturday that the US is still unsure whether North Korea was involved. North Korea has long denied using state-linked units for cyber theft. Binance itself has not named an actor.

Read Also: Pakistan Arrests Man Over $126M US Postage Fraud Case

Hack Scale Exposed

Binance is huge. It reported 335 million registered users and about $162.8 billion in customer assets under custody in its 2025 annual report. A failure at that scale would have hit a lot of people.

This hack also dwarfs earlier ones. TRM Labs says attackers stole $2.9 billion across nearly 150 attacks in all of last year. One incident has now more than doubled that figure.

Market Reaction and Industry Impact

Crypto prices fell on Friday while Binance tried to reassure customers that their funds were safe.

Other firms moved fast. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, along with BitGo, froze assets. Dawn also reports that other exchanges are calling for quick security upgrades after the heist.

Binance has not said how it will prevent a repeat. It did say it plans to publish an updated proof of reserves after remediation.

What It Means for Users

• Your funds: Binance says user funds are safe and that it will cover all losses.
• Withdrawals: They are reopening in phases, so some assets may come back later than others.
• Safety habit: Keep a small amount on exchanges. Use two-factor authentication and an anti-phishing code. Be careful with any “withdrawal reopened” links, since scammers love moments like this.

Final Thoughts

Binance has moved quickly to cover the losses, and that should calm many users. But the story is not over. The stolen money is still being laundered, the full breach path is still being investigated, and one attribution is disputed at the political level.