The attack, which happened late on Thursday, eclipses a previous record crypto heist involving the theft of about $1.5bn in virtual assets from a Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange last year. Crypto giant Binance is attempting to recover $6.3bn stolen in a major hack that experts and analytics firms have linked to North Korean state-backed hackers.
Binance, which was founded in China in 2017, allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets. The platform has 335 million registered users globally and held about $162.8bn in assets under custody as of its 2025 annual report.
The enormous financial loss has triggered widespread fear from Binance users and the crypto industry at large regarding whether the exchange will actually be capable of covering the deficit.
The company said: “As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our security teams conduct checks, secure wallet infrastructure and trace affected assets, with the close support of our law enforcement and industry partners.” Markets reacted immediately in early Asian trading on Friday, and within hours bitcoin – the most popular crypto asset by far – had fallen 5% from its level before news of the hack broke, to $77,380, its lowest level in six weeks.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says it has frozen around half of the funds stolen in a"complex"hack, after $6.3bn (£4.7bn) was accessed in what is believed to be a record heist.
Several analytics firms have linked the hack, which eclipses a $1.5bn (£1.12bn) heist on the Bybit exchange in 2025, to a North Korean hacking unit.