FBI links North Korea to $6 billion Binance crypto theft

The FBI has attributed the theft of over $6 billion in cryptocurrency from exchange Binance to North Korea, an incident occurring around October 29, 2026. The agency has named the malicious cyber activity "TraderTraitor." The FBI stated that TraderTraitor actors, an elite North Korean hacking unit previously linked to the February 2025 Bybit attack, converted stolen assets into Ethereum. These funds are expected to be laundered through DeFi services, preparing them for subsequent money-laundering stages. Binance, the world's largest crypto platform, reported the security breach on Friday, estimating $6.3 billion in impact and freezing about $3 billion. The company suspended deposits and withdrawals, pledged to cover losses via its SAFU fund, and noted attackers may have compromised an operations engineer's laptop.