Binance Suffers Largest Cryptocurrency Hack in History With $6.3 Billion Stolen
BITmarkets Team
Nov 02, 2026
In a statement, the cryptocurrency exchange said it had coordinated with blockchain partners to freeze around $3 billion in affected assets. Binance also committed to reimbursing all losses through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and additional company resources.
According to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, the incident was approximately four times larger than the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, which previously held the record for the largest cryptocurrency theft.
Binance confirms record $6.3 billion cryptocurrency hack
The first indications of suspicious activity emerged when blockchain researcher Spreek identified unusual transfers originating from an Ethereum wallet associated with Binance. In a post on X, Spreek reported that assets had been transferred to a newly created address through a smart contract interaction allegedly funded using Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixing protocol.
The researcher subsequently observed wallets connected to the suspicious transactions selling Tether's USDT through decentralized exchanges. Later on, blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence identified several wallets grouped under the label “binance-hacker-1029,” collectively holding approximately $5.84 billion in digital assets.
However, Arkham's figure reflected the assets held in those wallets rather than a verified estimate of the total amount stolen. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao also addressed the incident on X, indicating that the transactions appeared to be connected to a security breach.
Zhao initially reported that Tether and Circle had frozen approximately $971 million and $823 million, respectively, in assets associated with the suspicious activity. He also expressed confidence that affected Binance users would have their funds fully covered. Binance subsequently confirmed the breach and announced its plans to compensate users through SAFU and company funds.
Tether and Circle freeze billions in assets linked to the attack
Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle played a significant role in restricting access to funds connected to the Binance hack. Blockchain security company Blockaid reported that its initial investigation had identified approximately $3.3 billion in suspicious transfers involving Binance-associated wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche.
As the investigation progressed, Tether and Circle announced that they had collectively frozen more than $2.36 billion in stablecoins linked to the incident. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed that the company had frozen more than $800 million in USDC in cooperation with law enforcement authorities.
Allaire also indicated that Circle would continue assisting the investigation into the unauthorized transfers. Shortly afterward, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced that the company had restricted access to more than $1.567 billion in USDT associated with the breach. “Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority,” Ardoino wrote.
The freezing of these assets formed part of a broader effort involving Binance, blockchain security firms and stablecoin issuers to limit the movement of funds connected to the attack. Binance later stated that approximately $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen through its coordination with blockchain partners.
Despite these measures, the incident represents an unprecedented cryptocurrency security breach in terms of the reported value of assets involved.
Binance incident follows separate Polymarket security breach
The Binance attack occurred just hours after prediction market platform Polymarket temporarily suspended trading following a security compromise involving a third-party service provider. Polymarket reported that the issue had been resolved and committed to reimbursing users affected by the incident.
The platform subsequently confirmed that its systems were fully operational again. Although the two incidents occurred within a short period, no connection between them was established in the reports. The Binance breach substantially exceeds previous cryptocurrency thefts, including the February 2025 attack on Bybit, which resulted in approximately $1.5 billion in stolen assets.
The scale of the latest incident highlights the financial risks associated with security breaches at major cryptocurrency platforms, even as blockchain monitoring tools and stablecoin issuers provide mechanisms to identify and restrict suspicious transactions. Binance's commitment to covering user losses through SAFU and company funds will be a central part of its response as investigations into the attack continue.
Sources:
https://www.binance.com/en-TR/support/announcement/detail/c5a8729a97ac486d963784d96c5642d7
https://arkm.com/explorer/entity/21a94755-f604-45e5-9501-6542e23005e8
https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/2115918000373346709
https://x.com/spreekaway/status/2115904721856651382
