Binance Hack Explained: How $6.3 Billion Was Stolen in 20 Minutes (2026)

The Binance hack of October 29, 2026 is the largest crypto theft on record: Binance estimates that about $6.3 billion left its wallets, and TRM Labs found that most of it moved out in roughly 20 minutes. The attacker did not steal anyone's password. They got inside Binance's own systems and told its wallets to pay them.

This guide pulls together what has been confirmed so far, what is still unclear, and what the incident means for anyone in Pakistan who holds crypto. Here is what you will find below:

• A timeline of the first 48 hours, with times in both UTC and Pakistan time
• How investigators think the attackers got in, in plain language
• Where the money went, and how about $3 billion was frozen
• Why analysts link the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor unit
• Practical steps to protect your own exchange account this week

A note before you read: this is the biggest crypto hack 2026 has produced, and the story is still moving fast. Every number here comes from a named source, and Binance has promised a full post-mortem. Some figures will change as that report arrives.

What Happened at Binance on October 29?

Late on Thursday, October 29, Binance confirmed it was investigating a possible multibillion-dollar breach. According to Bitcoin.com News, the exchange placed the loss at about $6.3 billion at roughly 8:05 PM UTC. In Pakistan, that was 1:05 AM on Friday, so most local users woke up to the news.

Binance paused withdrawals the same day. Co-founder Changpeng Zhao posted on X, "It does look like a hack on Binance," as reported by Forbes Africa. The company's message to customers was short: user funds are safe, and Binance will cover the losses.

Estimates of the size differ slightly because each firm measures at a different moment:

• Binance: about $6.3 billion, and it warned the figure "may continue to increase"
• TRM Labs: about $6.36 billion across 10 blockchains, per Al Jazeera
• Chainalysis: about $5.9 billion, valued at the time of the theft

Even the lowest estimate is roughly four times the previous record, the $1.5 billion taken from the exchange Bybit in February 2025.

Binance Hack Timeline: The First 48 Hours

The sequence below is built from the live coverage by Cointelegraph and Binance's own updates. Pakistan time (PKT) is UTC plus five hours.

The target date for reopening withdrawals moved several times. Binance first said 48 hours, then 45, then 40. Its second formal update promised a phased restart about 34 hours later, subject to security checks. Forbes Africa reported on October 31 that Binance planned to reopen withdrawals over the weekend.

How Did the Attackers Get In?

Binance's first explanation was simple. According to CoinDesk, the attacker compromised a DevOps engineer's laptop, used it to reach a service container, and submitted withdrawal requests that Binance never approved. A service container is a small, isolated piece of software that runs one job inside a larger system. In this case, that job was close to the wallets.

The picture grew more complex within hours. Co-CEO Richard Teng said the attack "was not a single 'one-click' action," as Forbes reported. He described several extra breach points and approval controls that were bypassed. He also said the attacker used a "self-destruct mechanism" that deleted its tools and traces once the money moved.

The Five Stages, as Reported So Far

1. Initial access. One engineer's work computer is compromised. Binance has not yet said how.
2. Movement inside. From that laptop, the attacker reaches internal infrastructure, including a service container.
3. Signing. Security firm Hypernative reports that the transactions carried valid signatures from keys Binance controls.
4. Bypass. Teng said an EIP-7702 delegation over a hot wallet "did not pass through our normal approval controls." EIP-7702 is an Ethereum feature that lets a regular wallet run smart contract code.
5. Cleanup. Funds leave in about 20 minutes, and the attacker's tools erase themselves.

Here is the key point for learners studying the Binance hack. Binance says it has found no evidence that any wallet's private key leaked. That sounds reassuring, but it also shows the real weakness. If an attacker can make your own system sign a transaction, they don't need your key. Modern attacks on large platforms often look like normal work from a trusted account, which is why they are hard to spot in time.

Not everyone accepts the no-leak claim. Mark Karpeles, the former head of the collapsed exchange Mt. Gox, told Reuters that the attackers probably reached keys for at least two Binance wallets, according to Al Jazeera. The full post-mortem should settle this.

Where Did the $6.3 Billion Go?

At its peak, the attacker's wallets held more than $5.7 billion, according to Arkham data quoted by CoinDesk. That included about $1.5 billion in bitcoin, $900 million in ether, about $1.5 billion in USDT and more than $800 million in USDC.

Stablecoins turned out to be the weak spot in the Binance hack. USDT and USDC are issued by companies that can freeze tokens at a specific address. Within hours, both did:

The independent firm Elliptic counted $2.84 billion frozen as of 8 AM UTC on October 30, most of it USDT and USDC. Bitcoin and ether can't be frozen in the same way, so those parts of the haul are now the focus of tracing.

Laundering began fast. Chainalysis said it saw "never-seen-before laundering patterns," with thousands of automated transactions bouncing funds between addresses. Investigator ZachXBT reported that some Binance funds moved through the THORChain cross-chain service and were mixed in one address with money from September's Bitget theft. A contract call funded through the Tornado Cash mixer also created a new attacker address.

Who Is TraderTraitor, and Why Is North Korea Blamed?

TraderTraitor is the name used for a North Korean hacking unit linked to the wider Lazarus Group. TRM Labs said with "high confidence" that this unit carried out the Binance hack, and Chainalysis agreed. Analysts see the marks of a North Korea crypto hack: the same methods used in the Bybit theft and to funds mixing with the Bitget proceeds.

The FBI has named this group before. In public service announcement I-022625-PSA, it said North Korea was responsible for the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit theft of February 21, 2025, and described the pattern: convert stolen assets quickly, spread them across thousands of addresses on several blockchains, and later cash out to regular money.

The motive is money for a sanctioned state. TRM's Ari Redbord told Al Jazeera that these funds support weapons programs, which makes the theft a security issue beyond crypto. North Korea routinely denies involvement in hacking. Binance itself has been careful: Teng said its investigation "has not attributed responsibility to any individual."

How Does This Compare With Earlier Crypto Thefts?

The size is what makes this the largest crypto hack on record. TRM's 2026 Crypto Crime Report, quoted by Al Jazeera, found that hackers stole $2.87 billion in nearly 150 attacks across all of 2025. The Binance hack alone more than doubled that.

Size alone is not the only lesson. The Bitget theft in September froze only $1.1 million, according to Forbes Africa. At Binance, the stablecoin share and fast action by issuers meant almost half the loss was locked within a day.

Are Binance Users' Funds Safe?

After the Binance hack, the exchange says yes, and it has put money behind the promise. Its statement reads: "Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users." The plan has three parts:

• Reserves: more than $6.34 billion in company funds set aside, including $5 billion already held in the affected tokens, which covers about 80% of the loss
• Buying the rest: Yi He said Binance is buying the remaining tokens through exchanges and over-the-counter deals
• Proof of reserves: a snapshot comparing holdings with customer balances, with results promised by Monday, November 2

For scale, Binance held about $144 billion in assets before the hack, according to DefiLlama data cited by CoinDesk. The theft equals about 4% of that. Its emergency fund, the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), holds about $1 billion in bitcoin, so the SAFU fund alone could not cover this loss. The company's balance sheet carries most of the burden.

Two honest caveats. First, a promise is not a payout; watch whether phased withdrawals actually work for every coin. Second, Al Jazeera notes that most crime and cyber insurance policies don't cover stolen crypto. Your protection rests on the exchange's own strength.

What the Binance Hack Means for Crypto Users in Pakistan

Binance is one of the platforms Pakistanis use most for crypto. If you hold coins there, nothing in the reports so far suggests individual accounts were broken into. The attack hit Binance's own wallets. Your balance should still show in your account, but you couldn't withdraw while the pause lasted.

The Binance hack also arrives at a turning point for local rules. According to Sumsub, Pakistan's Virtual Assets Act, 2026 created a licensing system run by the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA). Firms already serving users had to apply for a No Objection Certificate by September 5. Operating without one can bring fines of up to Rs. 50 million or up to five years in prison. PVARA has issued preliminary NOCs to Binance and HTX, which is a first step and not a full licence.

Two licence conditions matter after this week. Licensed firms must keep customer holdings separate from company assets, and they must run a documented cybersecurity framework. Large incidents like this one tend to shape how regulators write the detailed rules, so expect cybersecurity to get closer attention.

Seven Habits to Protect Your Crypto This Week

You can't fix the internal controls behind the Binance hack, but you can shrink your own risk. These crypto security tips work best in order:

1. Keep only trading money on an exchange. Move long-term savings to a wallet where you control the keys, and write the recovery phrase on paper, never in your phone's gallery.
2. Ignore anyone who offers "hack compensation." Binance does not need your seed phrase, password or a "verification fee" to pay you. Fake support accounts on WhatsApp, Telegram and X are the next wave after every big breach.
3. Use an authenticator app or a passkey. SMS codes can be stolen through SIM swaps. If you've had a scare before, our WhatsApp hacked recovery checklist walks through the same account-locking ideas.
4. Turn on an anti-phishing code and a withdrawal address allowlist. Both are in your exchange's security settings, and both block common tricks.
5. Check where you are logged in. Remove old devices and API keys you no longer use.
6. Clean your own devices. This attack began with one laptop. Avoid cracked software and keep your phone updated. If your phone acts strangely, read our guide to checking whether your phone is hacked.
7. Report fraud attempts. In Pakistan, cybercrime complaints now go to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), which took over from the FIA's Cyber Crime Wing.

Lessons for Security Teams and Students

If you are learning cyber security, the Binance hack belongs in your notes. Three lessons stand out.

The Endpoint Is the Perimeter

One engineer's laptop opened the door. Companies need strict device management, hardware security keys for staff with production access, and fast alerts when a work device behaves oddly.

Approval Controls Must Cover Every Path

Binance had approval rules, yet one route skipped them. Good design asks a simple question for every wallet: is there any way to move funds that does not pass the same checks? New features such as EIP-7702 add paths that older rules may not cover.

Speed of Response Changes the Outcome

About $3 billion was frozen because issuers, investigators and other platforms acted within hours. Incident response, log keeping and relationships with outside partners are skills, and they can be practiced.

Studying Real Breaches in PSTA's Cyber Security Course

Cases like the Binance hack are the reason PSTA's Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking Course ends with case studies. The course runs 12 weeks at beginner level, and you can join online from any city or attend classes in Abbottabad. Its seven modules move from security fundamentals and common attacks such as phishing and social engineering to network defense, malware analysis, incident response, digital forensics and Pakistan's PECA law, finishing with a final security project.

That last part fits the Binance hack well. You learn to rebuild an incident timeline, preserve evidence and explain findings to a manager, which is what investigators did for Binance this week. Once you have the basics, the Advanced Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Course goes deeper into offensive testing. To plan which exam to take afterwards, see our cyber security certifications guide.

You can compare all programs on the courses page, apply through online admission, or ask about the next batch on WhatsApp at +92 314 5424399.

Check Your Exchange Account Tonight

Open your exchange app, go to security settings and spend ten minutes on three items: switch to an authenticator app, set an anti-phishing code and remove any device you don't recognize. Then decide how much crypto truly needs to sit on an exchange. The Binance hack shows that even the largest platform can be hit, and the best protection you control is how much you leave there.