Binance hack reaches $6.3 billion; North Korean hackers likely responsible

Someone stole $5.6 billion from Binance today, the biggest crypto exchange on earth, and within a few hours $2.4 billion of it was frozen by two companies. The $3.2 billion nobody can touch is the actual crypto. The biggest chunk left in a single Ethereum transaction. One Binance hot wallet sent 167,464 ETH, about 1.6 billion USDT, and more than 60 other tokens to a brand new address in one shot. Add the Bitcoin and Tron wallets and on-chain trackers put the total around $5.6 billion, which would make it the biggest theft crypto has ever seen. Then Tether froze about $1.56 billion of the USDT and Circle froze $823 million in USDC. Funny thing is, $823 million is exactly how much USDC the hacker took. Now look at what's still out there. 18,270 bitcoin worth about $1.45 billion, $875…

SITUATION BREWING: Binance may have been hacked. In a statement to Bloomberg, Binance said "We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating." Tether CEO Paolo Aroino has frozen 1.567B UDT related to the potential hack.

Trackers say a suspected Binance hack drained about $5.6 billion in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron, while Binance says it is investigating and has not confirmed any user-fund losses.

Our team is doing everything we can to support in the current situation, including blocking sends to compromised wallets. We've also reached out to Binance to offer our help. Moments like this call for the industry to work together. Openly sharing any useful information and helping to protect customers should come first, regardless of which platform they use. If you can do anything to help, please do! Crypto has been through many tough times, and has always come out stronger on the other side. This won’t be any different.