The Binance hack confirmed on Thursday, October 29, 2026, is now estimated at $6.3 billion, a figure that would rank it among the largest crypto thefts on record. Bitcoin fell as low as $76,301 while the news spread, according to Bitcoin Magazine, before recovering toward $77,800. Deposits and withdrawals on the exchange remain suspended.
Why it matters
A breach of this size tests both Binance’s balance sheet and the trust of its users. The company says it will cover all losses, but the final damage, the attacker’s identity and the timing of the technical post-mortem are still open questions.
What we know about the Binance hack
Suspicion started when a user spotted more than $2.7 billion in assets, including ether and stablecoins issued by Tether and Circle, moving from a Binance wallet to an external account under suspicious circumstances. Estimates then climbed. Earlier figures ranged from $2.7 billion to $5.8 billion before Binance put the total impact at about $6.3 billion.
How the attacker got in
In a post on X, Binance said its initial investigation suggests a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. The attacker reportedly reached a service container and submitted unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Binance said it has found no evidence of a wallet private key leak, and it has revoked the affected address authorization.
That distinction matters to users, because it locates the reported entry point in an internal system rather than in the wallet keys themselves, based on Binance’s preliminary findings.
Frozen funds and the SAFU pledge
Binance said about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain with help from blockchain partners. Its earlier figure for verified frozen assets was $2.54 billion, CNBC reported, adding that Circle, Tether and Ripple froze funds tied to the hack. Aave reportedly froze lending markets so the attacker couldn’t borrow against stolen assets.
“Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. User funds are safe,” the exchange wrote, adding that it will publish an updated Proof of Reserves once remediation is complete. Co-founder Yi He repeated that pledge. Former CEO Changpeng Zhao said he no longer manages Binance.com but, as a shareholder, expects all user funds to be fully covered. Binance.US said its platform isn’t affected.
What is still unclear
The numbers don’t fully line up yet. Chainalysis put losses at $5.91 billion, per Benzinga, while Arkham Intelligence linked nearly $6 billion in BTC, ETH, SOL and stablecoins to 55 wallet addresses connected to the exploit.
The frozen total is also murky. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than 1.567 billion USDT. Zhao, however, thanked Tether for about $971 million and Circle for about $823 million, roughly $1.8 billion combined, and Binance hasn’t explained how its own $3 billion figure breaks down.
Attribution is unconfirmed. Axios reported that hackers allegedly linked to North Korea were behind the theft and described the attack as the latest in a string of incidents during what’s been called “Black October.” Binance has said it is working with law enforcement and trying to confirm the identities of those responsible. It has not released a timeline for the full technical post-mortem.
How markets and analysts reacted
The selloff came quickly. On Binance, bitcoin dropped from about $80,800 at 20:00 UTC to about $78,300 by 20:35 UTC on Thursday. Coinglass data showed $627.7 million in liquidations in a single hour late Thursday, $606.6 million of it long positions, BeInCrypto reported. Our earlier coverage tracked the hour of liquidations as hack fears spread.
Bitcoin, BNB and ether after the Binance hack
Bitcoin was already under pressure. Fortune noted it traded at $80,036.60 at 8:45 a.m. ET on October 29, before the hack, down 27.26% from a year earlier. Here’s where major assets stood afterwards, per CoinGecko data:
| Asset | Price (Oct 30, 04:13 UTC) | 24h change | 24h low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $77,951 | -2.27% | $76,443 |
| Ethereum (ETH) | $2,232.19 | -3.17% | $2,178.62 |
| BNB | $716.82 | -3.85% | $682.36 |
| XRP | $1.25 | -3.18% | $1.20 |
| Solana (SOL) | $96.90 | -2.66% | $92.64 |
By early Friday, BNB was trading near $693, down about 8.2% over 24 hours, Cointelegraph reported, citing CoinGecko. Ynetnews said bitcoin hit a six-week low of $76,368 and ether fell to $2,178, its lowest level in two months. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 30, or “Fear,” on October 30.
Aravind Srinivasan, head of systematic OTC trading at market maker GSR, called it “the biggest hack in history.” CNBC and Axios have used similar wording, though the final loss figure may still change. For comparison with earlier estimates, see our report on what was then flagged as possibly the largest crypto hack in history.
What it means for investors
The clearest takeaway is exchange risk. Funds held on a centralized platform depend on that company’s security and solvency, and access can be suspended, as users are seeing now with Binance withdrawals paused. Binance’s pledge to cover losses comes from the company itself, through its SAFU fund and company funds.
Incidents like this can also attract scammers posing as support staff or offering fake “refunds.” Binance asks users to rely only on its official channels for updates. Legitimate support should never ask for a seed phrase or password.
The price drop shows how leverage amplifies shocks. More than $600 million in long positions were liquidated in an hour, a reminder that crypto prices can swing sharply and that losses can be total. Nothing here is investment advice.
Binance says it will publish an updated Proof of Reserves once remediation is complete. When it does, readers can set it against how other exchanges handle reserve reporting, for example in our report on OKX’s proof of reserves.
Bottom line
Binance says the breach appears to have started with a compromised employee laptop and that it has found no evidence of a private key leak. It also says user funds are safe and that it will cover all losses. Until the post-mortem, the reserves update and the reopening of withdrawals arrive, the true scale and cost of the incident remain unconfirmed.
Sources
- Bitcoin Price Briefly Slides to $76,300 as Binance Confirms Hack Estimated at $6.3 Billion (Bitcoin Magazine)
- Binance Hack: $6.3 Billion Impacted, Circle and Tether Freeze, Crypto Markets React (finance.yahoo.com)
- Biggest-ever crypto hack impacts $6.3 billion as Binance works to contain fallout (www.cnbc.com)
- Binance reports $6.3 billion crypto breach, potentially the biggest hack in history (www.ynetnews.com)
- Binance probes possible $5.7 billion crypto hack, possibly the biggest in history (www.axios.com)
- Binance hack rattles markets as BNB falls 8%, Bitcoin nears $77K (cointelegraph.com)
- Crypto Liquidations Top $628 Million in an Hour as Binance Hack Fears Sink Bitcoin (beincrypto.com)
- Binance Hack Drives Bitcoin Below $77,000, Ethereum, XRP, Dogecoin Also in the Red (www.benzinga.com)
- Current price of Bitcoin for October 29, 2026 (fortune.com)
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile; always do your own research before investing.
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