Binance, one of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, resumed Bitcoin, Ether and some stablecoin withdrawals on Sunday. The company said other withdrawals would follow in phases after it covered 95% of the $6.3 billion in tokens stolen from its platform. The FBI has linked the heist to North Korea, and analysts believe it could be the biggest financial robbery ever, adding to a string of recent cryptocurrency thefts.
Last year, attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency across nearly 150 attacks, according to researchers at TRM Labs.
FBI ties the attack to North Korean units
The FBI said on Saturday that a North Korean state-sponsored unit known as TraderTraitor was responsible for the attack. Pyongyang has for years denied using state-linked cyber units for espionage, financial theft and revenue generation.
Law enforcement officials observed members of the unit converting the stolen assets into the cryptocurrency Ether, according to the FBI. It also said it expected further laundering of the assets using related technologies.
The bulk of the theft unfolded in around 20 minutes, beginning late on Thursday, and bore similarities to previous large-scale attacks attributed to North Korea, according to US blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis. US President Donald Trump, however, said the United States was still unsure whether North Korea was involved.
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Binance has been working with industry partners to freeze some of the affected assets, with about $3 billion located as of Friday. The exchange has repeatedly said it would bear the financial impact of the funds stolen in the hack. Reports suggest that it had set aside $6.34 billion in company funds internally to cover the losses.
The money used to buy replacement tokens came from Binance's $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a Bitcoin reserve it maintains to protect customers in the event of security breaches, as well as some of its Futures Insurance Fund and corporate treasury, the company said on X.
Richard Teng, Binance's co-CEO, described the breach as a "complex attack" involving a compromised laptop and malicious software designed to delete evidence of its activity, making the incident harder to trace and investigate.
How the Binance hack happened
The hackers used increasingly sophisticated methods to steal and launder cryptocurrency, executing thousands of transactions within a short period, likely with the help of automation. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said the attackers employed previously unseen laundering techniques, making the process particularly complex and difficult to track.
Following the attack, crypto firms Tether and Circle froze more than $2 billion worth of their respective stablecoins seized by the hackers. Binance is now working to recover those funds. However, another $2.4 billion in crypto has reportedly moved beyond the reach of issuers, according to TRM Labs. Binance said it had set aside $6.34 billion to cover potential losses from the hack.
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