Binance Loses $6.3 Billion in Largest Crypto Heist Ever, Drawing FBI Scrutiny

Binance was hit with the largest crypto theft on record on October 29, 2026, when an attacker drained roughly $6.3 billion from the exchange's wallets across ten different blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes starting at 20:05 UTC. The haul is about four times the size of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack from February 2025, which until now stood as crypto's biggest heist.

An early investigation points to an engineer's laptop as the entry point, giving the attacker access to a service container that was then used to submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Funds moved out across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, the XRP Ledger, Solana, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Base and Polygon.

Blockchain tracing firms have pointed to North Korea as the likely source of the attack, with Chainalysis saying it has "high confidence" the country was behind it. The FBI has tied the same group to the earlier Bybit hack.

The FBI said it is coordinating with partners to understand the scope of the activity, evaluate potential impacts, and coordinate appropriate investigative steps, while Secret Service investigators are working with the private sector around the clock to try to recover the stolen funds. So far, about $3 billion of the crypto that passed through wallets connected to the hackers has been identified and frozen.