FBI Ties North Korea to $6 Billion Binance Hack, Urges DeFi to Block Addresses

The incident has been described as the largest crypto attack on record. Reporting on the scale of the theft has varied across outlets, with figures cited between roughly $6 billion and $6.4 billion. Binance has said it set aside $6.34 billion to cover losses from the breach.

On-chain data showed billions of dollars in digital assets moving from wallets linked to Binance to newly created external addresses. Blockchain intelligence firm Arkham reported that the hackers held more than $5.7 billion in stolen assets, including $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, $900 million in Ether, about $1.5 billion in USDT and over $800 million in USDC.

While the FBI listed hundreds of addresses in its notice, Chainalysis said the attackers had already used thousands of addresses and expected that number to keep growing.

The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service are working with Binance as investigators trace the funds. Stablecoin issuer Circle froze $823 million linked to the breach. Binance has said it has begun phased withdrawals following the hack.

The blockchain analytics firm said attackers accessed internal systems and exposed customer names, emails and user IDs, but found no sign that investigation data was compromised.