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Trump says US probing North Korea link to $6.3 billion Binance hack
With about $3 billion of affected assets frozen, the record crypto theft is testing exchange security and market nerves alike.
Desh Flash desk1 November 2026, 8:00 am IST2 minUpdated 1 November 2026, 8:00 am IST

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington is investigating whether North Korean hackers were behind a cyberattack on Binance, which the exchange puts at roughly $6.3 billion in impact. "We're looking at that," he told reporters in the Oval Office, adding: "It was a hack."
Binance described the incident as a "complex attack" and said it is working with law enforcement. The exchange also said about $3 billion worth of affected assets has been frozen, a figure that offers some reassurance to a market watching for fallout.
If the numbers hold, this would be the largest crypto heist on record, roughly four times the $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February last year, the previous benchmark.
Blockchain investigators are pointing in one direction. TRM Labs said it has "high confidence" that TraderTraitor, a group affiliated with North Korea, carried out the attack. The same group has been blamed for the Bybit theft. Elliptic has also linked the attack to North Korean hackers, according to CoinDesk.
There is a notable shift in Binance's own account. Early findings suggested a single compromised laptop, but the company now says its investigation has uncovered additional points of breach. It also cautioned that the estimated impact may rise as teams work with law enforcement, token issuers and blockchain intelligence firms to trace and freeze more assets.
For investors, the context matters. Binance is the world's largest exchange by daily trading volume, so a breach of this scale puts a spotlight on custody practices across the industry. The speed of the freezes, and the cooperation between exchanges, issuers and analytics firms, will be the key signals to watch in the coming days.
Source: WION News
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