Washington, November 1, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has attributed the theft of more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, to North Korea, identifying the cyber operation as ‘TraderTraitor’.
In a cyber alert, the FBI said North Korea was responsible for stealing more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance on or around October 29, 2026.
“The FBI is releasing information advising the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, on or about October 29, 2026,” the agency said, referring to North Korea by its official name.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the FBI identified the operation as ‘TraderTraitor’, a name previously associated with cryptocurrency thefts carried out by North Korean hackers.
The agency said it had observed the hackers converting the stolen assets primarily into Ethereum, a major cryptocurrency. The monitoring was conducted in coordination with the US Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division.
The FBI warned that the hackers were expected to further launder the stolen funds through decentralised finance platforms and cryptocurrency exchange services that allow users to quickly swap one digital asset for another.
The FBI, US Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation division urged cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain operators, analytics firms and other virtual asset service providers to block transactions involving digital wallet addresses used by the North Korean hackers to launder the stolen funds.
The FBI’s announcement followed an assessment by US blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, which had earlier attributed the estimated $6.36 billion Binance theft to the TraderTraitor operation.
Meanwhile, Binance said it had covered around 90 per cent of the losses linked to the security breach, which the company had earlier estimated at approximately $6.3 billion. The exchange reiterated that users would not face any financial impact from the incident.
In an update posted on social media platform X, Binance said it had previously allocated more than $6.34 billion in company funds to address losses associated with the breach. It had since increased the coverage from approximately 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the affected assets.
The company also said that major digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), were currently backed on a one-to-one basis.
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