Binance hack estimated at $5.8–6.3 billion, largest on record
Security & Exploits ·
A suspected breach traced to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop has frozen deposits and withdrawals and triggered a market-wide selloff.
Binance detected a suspected breach late on Oct. 29 UTC, with on-chain trackers estimating between $5.8 billion and $6.3 billion in abnormal outflows spread across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron, and layer-2 networks, according to Bloomberg. Binance has said the intrusion may stem from a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop and has suspended deposits and withdrawals while investigating, according to a notice posted on Binance's own site. The exchange has pledged to cover losses through its SAFU fund.
Tether and Circle have already frozen more than $2.3 billion in USDT and USDC linked to the attacker's addresses, limiting how much of the stolen funds can be moved or cashed out. The scale of the suspected theft, if confirmed near the upper estimate, would make it the largest crypto hack on record.
The incident has rattled broader markets. Bitcoin fell from roughly $81,000 to below $77,000, and Ether slid toward $2,200, as the breach compounded an existing stock-market selloff, per the Bloomberg report. The episode is also denting confidence in centralized exchanges more broadly, with liquidity stress and risk-off trading expected to persist until recovery efforts and asset freezes are finalized.
The fallout is drawing regulatory and Wall Street attention. Reports indicate the Trump administration is examining or has opened an investigation into the hack, and analysts have pointed to security failures at Binance, with some recommending institutional investors favor stock-market Bitcoin proxies over direct crypto exposure in the wake of the theft, according to Decrypt. Binance has separately characterized the situation as an ongoing security incident, saying infrastructure upgrades and recovery work are underway.
Unresolved questions include the final confirmed loss figure, which has ranged from $5.6 billion to $6.4 billion across different estimates, the exact mechanism by which the compromised laptop enabled the outflows, and whether frozen stablecoin funds can eventually be recovered or returned. The timeline for restoring deposits and withdrawals, and the outcome of any government investigation, remain to be seen.