Binance Hit by Record Crypto Heist After Engineer's Laptop Reportedly Compromised

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Thursday that a security incident on its platform has affected about $6.3 billion worth of assets. The company says nearly $3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far. Tether and Circle reported freezing more than 1.567 billion USDT and 800 million related to the incident, and the Arbitrum Security Council froze about $30.5 million.

Binance's initial investigation suggests the breach may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. That access allegedly let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. The company says there is no evidence that a wallet private key was leaked. It has promised to cover all losses from its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and its own funds, and says it is working with law enforcement to identify those responsible.

Blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis estimates about $5.912 billion was stolen at the time of theft, nearly four times the next largest crypto heist. That previous record was the roughly $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025, later attributed to North Korea. This is a developing story, and the details so far come from early updates and may change as the investigation continues.