FBI says North Korea was behind the $6 billion-plus Binance theft

The FBI said on October 31 that North Korea was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance, the largest crypto heist on record (AP, DW).

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, on or about October 29, 2026," the FBI said in a statement.

The TraderTraitor group

According to the FBI, the attack was carried out by a group known as TraderTraitor, which is linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group and is the same actor behind the $1.5 billion Bybit hack last year. The FBI said it had observed the hackers converting the stolen assets mainly into Ethereum and warned that they were likely to launder them further through DeFi and instant swap services. It urged crypto exchanges and blockchain analytics firms to block transactions linked to the addresses involved.

Binance is covering the losses

The stolen assets included bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins such as Tether and USD Coin. Binance said it was using more than $6.34 billion of company funds to buy tokens and replenish about 90% of the stolen assets, adding that the remaining 10% consists of less liquid tokens and may take longer. "Binance will fully cover the financial impact of the funds stolen in this incident," the company said on X.