Binance reports about $6.3 billion lost in exchange breach

Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, is dealing with a security breach that the company puts at about $6.3 billion in digital assets. Cryptonews said this could be the largest exchange breach on record, surpassing a 2025 Bybit incident it cited at $1.5 billion. Fortune Crypto said the drain was noticed on Thursday, when observers on X spotted large transfers leaving wallets linked to the exchange.

Binance's Thursday evening post pointed to a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer as the likely starting point, according to Fortune Crypto. An attacker reached a service container through that device and sent unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Cryptonews reported that co-CEO Richard Teng rejected the idea that this was a simple case of stolen credentials, describing instead a multi-stage operation. Binance said it has found no evidence that wallet private keys were exposed, revoked permissions on affected addresses, and brought in law enforcement and blockchain tracing specialists.

The figures differ across accounts. Cryptonews said roughly $3 billion had been frozen on-chain through partners and other platforms, and warned that a large share may still sit in attacker hands. Fortune Crypto said unofficial estimates on X ranged from $2 billion to $8 billion, and listed early reports of $1.5 billion taken in Bitcoin, a similar amount in Tether, and just under a billion in another asset. CoinDesk put the loss above $6 billion and said bitcoin dropped back to $77,000 as prices slid on the news.

Leadership responses also vary in emphasis. Cryptonews reported that Teng told customers their holdings were secure and that the firm would cover losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users and corporate reserves. It also reported that former CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote on X that, as a shareholder, he expected user funds to be fully covered. Fortune Crypto described Zhao as the company founder who confirmed the hack, so the two outlets label his role differently. Cryptonews said withdrawals were paused during an infrastructure overhaul while deposits continued, and Fortune Crypto said rival firms moved quickly to assist.

Looking ahead, Fortune Crypto reported that Binance planned to release fuller details on Friday and that the scope of the theft could take days to settle. Cryptonews said investigators are working to pin down who carried out the attack and to claw back the assets.