Crypto firm Binance claims to have covered 90% of losses from multibillion-dollar hack.
Published on November 1, 2026
The FBI has linked North Korea to the theft of a record $6.3 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Malicious actors from North Korea were observed laundering stolen assets by converting them primarily into the Ethereum cryptocurrency, the FBI said in a statement on Saturday.
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The US agency specifically blamed the operation on a group called TraderTraitor, the same group accused of a $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit platform in February last year.
According to the statement, the assets should be “further laundered” in stages.
The FBI has called on virtual asset service providers to block transactions used in the latest laundering operation, providing suspicious digital addresses to monitor.
In a separate statement on Saturday, Binance said it replaced 90% of the stolen amount using company money to purchase new tokens.
The remaining 10% are less liquid tokens, meaning they may take longer to purchase, he adds.
“We will continue to purchase the remaining relevant token assets…until the hedged amount reaches 100 (%) for all tokens. Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users,” the company said on X.
The money spent to buy back tokens came from a $1 billion Secure User Asset Fund (SAFU), a Bitcoin reserve fund that Binance holds to protect customers in the event of security breaches, as well as a portion of its futures insurance fund and the company’s corporate treasury.
Cryptocurrency prices fell Friday as Binance, which runs the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, sought to reassure customers that their funds were safe.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said Friday that the breach was a “complex attack” involving a compromised laptop and malware designed to remove evidence of its activity, making it difficult to trace and investigate.
After the hack, the exchange stopped allowing customers to withdraw their funds.
Binance said later on Saturday that it was set to reopen withdrawals on Sunday.
Binance also announced the release of a new Proof of Reserves snapshot, allowing users to independently verify that their assets were collateralized at a minimum ratio of 1:1.
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