The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has accused North Korea of stealing more than $6bn in virtual assets from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, in a hack disclosed on Saturday.
According to the statement, the FBI said the theft occurred on or around October 29.
“It is expected these assets will then be further laundered by converting them using DeFi and instant swap services as they prepare them for further laundering stages,” the FBI said in a statement.
The FBI had previously linked the TraderTraitor group to the theft of about $1.5bn from cryptocurrency exchange Bybit in February 2025.
On Thursday, blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis had also attributed the Binance theft to the same group.
Another blockchain analytics firm, Elliptic, estimated the stolen assets at $6.43bn, while Binance put the figure at approximately $6.3bn.
“This single incident almost doubles the total cryptoassets stolen by the regime,” Elliptic wrote.
Elliptic estimates that groups linked to North Korea have stolen more than $6.5bn in cryptoassets in recent years, including over $1bn in 2026 before the Binance hack.
