FBI Says North Korea Was Behind Binance’s $6.3 Billion Hack, Sees Signs of Money Laundering

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified North Korea as being behind the massive hack of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Bloomberg reported on October 31 that the FBI said the North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor stole more than $6 billion in digital assets from Binance. The breach is considered the largest hack in cryptocurrency history.

The FBI is tracing the movement of the stolen funds with the U.S. Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division. The agency said it had detected TraderTraitor moving the stolen assets primarily into Ether. It expects the group to carry out additional laundering through decentralized finance services and instant swap platforms.

TraderTraitor is one of North Korea’s main hacking groups. The FBI previously identified the group as being behind last year’s roughly $1.5 billion Bybit hack. North Korean hackers have also been linked to a cryptocurrency theft worth about $620 million in 2022.

Binance said it has covered about 90% of the roughly $6.3 billion in losses from the hack and plans to restore withdrawal services by November 1. The exchange reaffirmed that it will absorb the full amount of the losses so customers do not suffer any harm.

President Donald Trump had earlier said his administration was investigating possible North Korean involvement in the hack. Speaking to reporters at the White House on October 30, Trump referred to the incident and voiced concern about security risks tied to cryptocurrency trading.

The hack is considered one of the biggest cybercrime cases not only in the crypto industry but across cybercrime more broadly. As digital assets move further into mainstream finance, the incident has renewed focus on exchange security and the tracking of stolen funds.