A total of $6.3 billion was stolen with just a few targeted clicks. A blitz estimated to have taken just 20 minutes, the largest cyberattack in the cryptocurrency sector , which everyone is already calling "the heist of the century ," has hit Binance, the world's largest digital asset exchange. There are well-founded suspicions that North Korea is behind the sensational hack, aimed at raising funds for Kim Jong Un's coffers.
The latest in a long series of security incidents in the financial sector has proven to be the most sensational. Binance announced the immediate suspension of withdrawals and pledged to cover all losses. In a post on X, the company stated that approximately $3 billion in assets were frozen on blockchain networks after stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, along with other companies in the sector, managed to block them, leaving $3.3 billion in the hands of hackers.
Paolo Ardoino, head of Tether, wrote in a post on X that he had blocked over $1.5 billion in stablecoins. Jeremy Allaire, head of Circle Internet Group, clarified that $800 million in stablecoins issued by the company had been blocked. In response to the incident, the value of Bitcoin fell more than 4%, to $77,994.96, despite Binance announcing its promise to cover losses through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a fund created in 2018 to protect customers in the event of a hacker breach.
It's still unclear how the attack occurred. Binance had speculated that the intrusion was linked to a "compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer, which allowed one of the attackers to access a service container and execute unauthorized withdrawal transactions." However, the company's co-CEO, Richard Teng, later clarified that the attack involved a more complex process, not limited to the misuse of individual permissions . In short, something more sophisticated. Also, confirming the level of the attack, it hasn't even been possible to identify the person responsible for the breach so far.
However, TRM Labs, a company specializing in blockchain analytics and AI-based investigations, has identified Pyongyang-based hackers as the possible perpetrators. "Several features of the attack match previous operations attributed to North Korea, including the attacks on Bybit and KelpDAO in April 2026: small withdrawals via Tornado Cash to fund the operator's wallet, a preparatory phase initiated well before the theft, and the early acquisition of signatures, then used together in a single operation," the company noted in a post. This reconstruction is also supported by the blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis, which claims that the attack "could be the work of the North Korean cybercriminal group TraderTraitor." This is a group that has repeatedly targeted the cryptocurrency sector, DeFi protocols, and investors, aiming to raise funds for Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The hermit state is notoriously the primary source of production and possession of counterfeit dollars, which are then released onto the markets, but it has been honing its hacking skills for years.
The attack on Binance caused a clash between its founders and Elon Musk, who posted multiple emojis on X, ranging from laughter to grimaces of disappointment over the affair .
In response, Changpeng "Cz" Zhao, founder and former CEO, reminded the SpaceX and Tesla boss that the company holds stakes in Musk's companies. A $1 billion stake tied to the former Twitter executive, a tiny fraction of SpaceX's valuation, which is around $2 trillion.
(Unioneonline/vl)
