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Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, disclosed a hack that took an estimated $6.3 billion in assets from its wallets on October 29, 2026, the largest crypto theft on record. The exchange says about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain, user funds are safe, and it will cover all losses. Withdrawals remain suspended while it revamps security.
Key facts
- Size: Binance puts the impact at about $6.3 billion. TRM Labs says $6.36 billion; Chainalysis estimated $5.912 billion at the time of the theft. Tom's Hardware reported a preliminary $5.6 billion tally and noted it was subject to change.
- Speed: According to Wired, most funds left in about 20 minutes across at least ten blockchains, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron and Solana.
- Frozen: Binance says about $3 billion. Elliptic puts it at about $2.8 billion, and TRM at about $2.7 billion as of 00:30 UTC on Friday.
- Previous record: about $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025.
- Status: Binance.US, a separate company, said it was not affected, according to The Next Web.
How the attack unfolded
Binance first said a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer may have let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals. It later said further investigation had "uncovered additional points of breach". Co-CEO Richard Teng said the attacker did not simply use one engineer's permissions, as The Verge reported. Binance has found no evidence of a wallet private key leak.
TRM says preparation began at least 36 hours earlier, with a wallet funded through Tornado Cash and test runs on other wallets. On Ethereum, the attacker used the EIP-7702 feature to hand control of a hot wallet to its own code, per TRM as relayed by The Next Web.
