Binance Crypto Platform Hack Hits $6.3 Billion

The company, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, posted a series of messages on X that were sometimes contradictory, asserting that “users’ funds are completely safe,” while also stating it would “cover all losses.”

It added that it had worked with specialized blockchain technology partners to freeze the assets in question, with approximately $3 billion frozen on these chains so far.

The company said the value of frozen assets could rise as its teams collaborate with authorities, cryptocurrency issuers, data analytics firms, and sector partners to identify and freeze additional assets potentially targeted.

Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance who stepped down from managing the platform but still holds a majority stake, said it “does indeed appear to be a hack of the Binance platform.”

He estimated that losses from the attack might exceed $1 billion “by a small margin.”

For his part, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the issuer of the cryptocurrency USDT, stated that his company had frozen about $1.6 billion “linked to the possibility that the Binance platform was hacked.”

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, also reported that his company had frozen approximately $800 million worth of USDC.

Both USDT and USDC are classified as “stablecoins,” digital currencies whose values are pegged to the US dollar.

The US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not immediately respond to Agence France-Presse’s requests for comment.

Hours before Binance confirmed the hack, several industry observers noted that cybercriminals had gained access to the platform.

The total amount of funds affected by the hack is roughly four times the sum stolen in the largest cyberattack of its kind to date, when $1.5 billion was stolen in February 2025 from the Bybit platform in an operation attributed to North Korean-linked hackers known as “Trader Triathlete.”

On Thursday, TRM Labs, a firm specializing in blockchain-related investigations, said it was “highly confident” that the “Trader Triathlete” group had also orchestrated the Binance hack, based on “reliable intelligence from within and outside the blockchain ecosystem.”

“Trader Triathlete” is believed to be part of the “Lazarus” group, which gained notoriety in 2014 when it was accused of hacking Sony Pictures in retaliation for the film “The Interview,” which mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Prices of all major cryptocurrencies briefly fell, except for stablecoins, which, by their nature, fluctuate only within very narrow margins.

After Bitcoin dropped about 5 percent at the end of the US trading session, it pared its losses to 0.83 percent by around 05:00 GMT, while Ethereum recorded a slight decline of 0.81 percent. Binance’s native token, BNB, rose 2.67 percent after having lost about 10 percent.

The cyberattack on Binance comes as observers express several concerns that the capabilities of AI models could jeopardize cryptocurrency and information security protocols.

Some saw it as the first tangible sign of a shift in a technological breakthrough announced separately this week by OpenAI and Anthropic, concerning the information concept itself.

By debunking what is known as the “exponential time hypothesis,” the two companies demonstrated the potential to simplify decryption, although no practical application can currently be derived from this proof.

The blockchain protocol, which underpins cryptocurrencies, relies on cryptography to ensure the system is theoretically unhackable and to secure transactions.