Binance said on Friday, October 30, that the attack on the exchange was more complex than initial findings suggested: besides the hijacked laptop, additional points of compromise were discovered. The estimated impact of the incident is about $6.3 billion, and about $3 billion has been frozen.
On Friday morning, Binance’s account on X published an update on the investigation. The exchange said preliminary findings pointed to a hijacked laptop, but further analysis revealed additional points of compromise. Binance described the attack as sophisticated and said it is working in coordination with law enforcement.
What we know about the attack
Earlier, overnight from Thursday to Friday, Binance said the preliminary investigation pointed to the laptop of a DevOps engineer. Through it, the attacker reportedly gained access to a service container and submitted unauthorized withdrawal orders. The exchange also said it found no evidence of a leak of private wallet keys.
According to CNBC, Binance estimated the impact of the incident at $6.3 billion, of which about $3 billion has been frozen. The exchange said it will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and company funds. It plans to publish a detailed technical analysis after the investigation is complete. We earlier reported on the possible hacking attack on Binance.
The freezes were announced by stablecoin issuers. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino wrote that the company had frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT. According to Forbes, Changpeng Zhao said Tether froze about $971 million and Circle about $823 million; the discrepancy in Tether’s data needs to be clarified. Binance said on X that the „verified total of freezes” stands at $2.54 billion.
Who is behind the attack
TRM Labs assessed with „high confidence” that the attack was carried out by the TraderTraitor group, linked to North Korea. As Forbes, citing Reuters, reports, according to TRM about $6.36 billion left Binance wallets across 10 blockchain networks, mostly within about 20 minutes. Chainalysis reportedly noticed that some funds from the September attack on Bitget were linked to funds from Binance. These are assessments by analytics firms, not findings of law enforcement or Binance.
According to Al Jazeera and CoinDesk, this is the largest theft in the history of cryptocurrencies. The previous record was about $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit exchange in 2025.
Market and withdrawals
Deposits on Binance are operating normally, while withdrawals remain suspended until the rebuilding of the withdrawal service’s security is complete. The exchange had announced that withdrawals would resume within 48 hours. According to CoinDesk, liquidations across the market reached $1.5 billion, and Standard Chartered warns that prices may remain under pressure until more details emerge. According to AFP, the BNB token rebounded 2.7% after falling almost 10%.
What it means for users in Poland
If you hold funds on Binance, you cannot withdraw them until withdrawals resume, but you can still deposit. The exchange states that customer balances will be covered. After such events, the number of fake messages tends to rise, so use only official Binance channels, do not click links in messages, and never share codes or passwords. For background on the exchange, see our article on the history of Binance and Changpeng Zhao.
