North Korea-linked hackers took $6.3 billion from Binance in the largest crypto heist ever, and the exchange is promising to cover every loss

Binance, the biggest name in crypto, confirmed it was hit by a hack in which hackers linked to North Korea took digital assets valued at $6.3 billion, as reported by The New York Times. The theft is believed to be the largest single theft of tangible currency in history, not just the biggest in the crypto world.

Many people have been drawn to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin because the system is designed to make theft virtually impossible. Bitcoin began with a mysterious figure named Satoshi Nakamoto outlining his vision, and it was first mined in 2009. What once seemed like a niche interest for tech-savvy futurists went mainstream in the early 2020s, and the crypto industry now has a $2.6 trillion market cap.

Binance is the largest exchange for managing those assets. Founded in China in 2017, it handles close to $15 billion worth of transactions every day and lists over 900 different coins.

Online wallets came with a tradeoff

Many people initially stored crypto on physical hard drives, often called wallets. Accessing the assets meant using a long private key that was practically impossible to guess, and some users who misplaced their keys have spent years trying to recover potentially lost fortunes.

Digital wallets stored online have since become a popular option, offering convenience but also more exposure to cybercriminals looking for a huge payday. Losses tied to crypto wallets are not limited to exchanges, as a man’s missing $14,000 in crypto showed.

Binance confirmed it had been infiltrated in what it described as a “complex hack” involving multiple points of breach. The operation has been linked to an elite North Korean hacking unit.

The $6.3 billion stolen makes this the largest crypto heist ever recorded. The previous record was a $1.5 billion hack of Bybit in 2025, which was also traced back to North Korea.

Unlike traditional bank deposits, crypto holdings are not typically covered by agencies like the FDIC. Binance has pledged to cover all the losses incurred by users. The exchange temporarily froze withdrawals and deposits and said it hoped to restore normal business within a couple of days.