Play store
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has said it has recovered 90 per cent of the $6.3 billion in assets stolen in Thursday’s hacking incident, believed to be the largest cryptocurrency heist in history.
However, the company said recovering the remaining 10 per cent could take more time.
Binance has pledged to fully compensate affected users and said it has allocated more than $6.34 billion from its own funds to cover the losses.
“Binance will bear the financial losses of the stolen assets, not our users,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Saturday that North Korea was responsible for the attack.
Earlier, two analytics firms had told the BBC that they had strong intelligence indicating the involvement of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-backed hacking organisation also known as TraderTraitor.
The FBI also named the group in its statement.
Binance said it had used funds from various reserves and its own treasury to cover the shortfall caused by the theft.
According to the company, the compensation covers assets held in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and seven other widely traded cryptocurrencies.
The exchange’s next priority is to resume withdrawal services for users. Binance said it was aiming to restore the service by November 1, adding that further updates would be provided once details were confirmed.
The incident is believed to be the largest cryptocurrency hack in history. Previously, the biggest known crypto theft was the $1.5 billion heist from the Bybit exchange in 2025, which the FBI also blamed on North Korea.
Pyongyang has consistently denied allegations of involvement in such cyberattacks.
Binance’s initial investigation suggested that unauthorised withdrawals had been made possible after an engineer’s laptop was compromised. However, in a subsequent update, the company said it had identified additional “intrusion pathways” into its security systems.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said multiple individuals had been involved in the attack.
He added that the hackers had used sophisticated techniques, including self-destruct mechanisms designed to erase information automatically, to conceal their identities and activities.
On Friday, Binance said it had frozen nearly $3 billion in stolen assets through coordinated efforts with law enforcement agencies, intelligence services and various partners.
The company said the investigation was still ongoing.
The US Secret Service said on Friday that it was working around the clock with private-sector partners to identify, freeze, trace and recover funds stolen from Binance.
Founded in China in 2017, Binance allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets. The platform is estimated to have more than 300 million registered users worldwide.
Cryptocurrencies are digital assets that have no physical form and are stored and used through digital wallets or computers.
The hack sparked panic across the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin fell by five per cent to $76,800 during trading in New York on Friday afternoon.
Binance said in 2024 that it held more than $160 billion worth of assets under its custody.