Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been hacked in what could be the biggest crypto heist ever, with an estimated $6.3 billion (£4.7 billion) affected. The incident sent Bitcoin tumbling to a six-week low.
In a statement issued in the early hours of Friday, October 30, Binance said an early investigation suggests the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, where an attacker could have gained access to a service container and submitted unauthorised withdrawal transactions.
Exchange confirms no private key leak
Binance said in the statement: "We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak. We will share a detailed technical post-mortem once the investigation is complete and the facts are fully verified."
The estimated total impact sits at around $6.3 billion (£4.7 billion). Binance said it has worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets. Around $3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far, but the status of the remaining $3.3 billion was not given.
The exchange said it will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company's funds. "User funds are safe," Binance said.
Market reaction and Bitcoin price drop
The cryptocurrency market responded to the incident, with Bitcoin hitting a six-week low. It was last down 3% at $76,469.82, Reuters reports. Ethereum was down more than 3% at $2,185.83. Bitcoin fell below $77,000 and ETH fell below $2,200 after Binance said it has been hacked.
Founder's response and legal history
The cryptocurrency exchange was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao. In 2023, he pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform and stepped down as CEO.
Mr Zhao said in a post on X on Thursday that while he does not manage Binance anymore, "as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered." He was pardoned by US President Donald Trump in 2025. Mr Zhao and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family's crypto enterprises.
He was released from prison last year after being sentenced for violating the Bank Secrecy Act and was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for violations of that law, which requires American financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity. Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Mr Zhao did.
