Published
October 29, 2026
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, lost an estimated $6.3 billion from its hot wallets in an October 29, 2026 hack, the largest crypto theft on record. Binance says user funds are safe and it will cover the losses; no lawsuit has been filed, and there is nothing to claim.
What Happened?
On the afternoon of Thursday, October 29, 2026, crypto drained out of Binance-controlled wallets on about ten blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron and the XRP Ledger. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs puts the first outflow at 20:05 UTC (4:05 p.m. Eastern) and says most of the money moved in about 20 minutes.Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the exchange, posted a little over an hour later that “it does look like a hack on Binance.” Binance first said it was investigating “a potential security issue,” then suspended withdrawals on several networks, and that evening paused all deposits and withdrawals while its team “conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement.” As of October 30, they had not reopened.
Binance’s preliminary explanation is that the incident “may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.” Binance says it found no evidence that any wallet private key leaked. TRM Labs, in its own analysis, says the attacker’s operator wallet was funded through Tornado Cash the day before. On Ethereum, TRM says a single transaction carrying 50 pre-signed authorizations turned Binance’s hot wallet into a “sweeper” that emptied it about three and a half minutes later. Binance has promised a full post-mortem.
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Status
No Lawsuit Filed · Deposits & Withdrawals Paused
Hack on October 29, 2026 · Binance investigating with law enforcement
Estimated Loss
About $6.3 Billion
Binance’s estimate · about $3 billion frozen on-chain so far, per Binance
Can I Claim?
No — nothing to claim
Binance says it will cover the losses from its SAFU fund and company funds
How Much Was Taken and How Much Is Frozen
Binance put the “estimated total impact” at about $6.3 billion. That is a Binance estimate, not a final accounting. Analysts’ figures vary with timing and prices:- TRM Labs: about $6.36 billion at the time of the theft, across 10 blockchains.
- Chainalysis: about $5.9 billion.
- Arkham: attacker wallets held more than $5.7 billion at one point.
Stablecoin issuers moved within the hour. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said Tether froze more than 1.5 billion USDT, and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said Circle froze more than $800 million in USDC “associated with the incident.” Ripple, World Liberty Financial and Arbitrum’s Security Council froze smaller amounts. Binance first called the verified frozen total $2.54 billion and later raised it to “~$3 billion frozen on-chain so far.” Frozen tokens cannot be moved, but they have not been returned to Binance.
Crypto prices fell on the news. As of 10 p.m. Eastern on October 29, The Block reported bitcoin down 4.5% to $76,664, ether down 5.2% and Binance’s BNB token down 7.1%. CoinGlass data cited by The Block showed $1.55 billion in liquidated positions over 24 hours, though not all of it was caused by the hack.
What Binance Says About Customer Funds
Binance has said repeatedly that “user funds are completely safe.” Co-CEO Yi He said Binance “will cover all hacking losses,” and the exchange said it will pay from its SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) reserve and company funds. SAFU holds about $1 billion in bitcoin, according to CoinDesk, far less than the loss, so most of the money would have to come from Binance itself. Zhao, Binance’s largest shareholder, wrote that he expects “all user funds will be fully covered.”The coins were taken from Binance’s hot wallets, not from individual customer accounts, and no customer account losses had been reported as of October 30. CoinDesk reported that one drained Ethereum wallet was listed in Binance’s October 1 proof-of-reserves snapshot as backing customer balances, leaving Binance’s ether backing about 6% short until it is replaced. Binance says it will publish updated proof of reserves after the incident is resolved.
Binance.US, a separate company that serves U.S. customers, says it was not affected and that all of its user funds are safe. Binance.com, the global exchange that was hacked, does not officially serve U.S. customers.
Who Is Behind It?
Binance has not named an attacker, and no government agency had attributed the hack as of October 30. TRM Labs says it assesses with “high confidence” that TraderTraitor, a North Korean state hacking unit, was responsible, citing patterns shared with earlier thefts. Blockaid’s CEO said the tactics were consistent with North Korea, and on-chain investigator ZachXBT named the Lazarus Group as the likely attacker. These are private analysts’ assessments.The FBI publicly blamed TraderTraitor for the Bybit hack in February 2025. Two days before this hack, on October 27, Binance said it had blocked several North Korea-linked “fake job interview” attacks aimed at its staff over the prior week, with no assets lost.
Could There Be a Class Action?
No lawsuit over the hack had been found in federal court records or announced as of October 30, 2026, and no law firm had publicly announced an investigation. Three factors stand out.Whether customers lost money. Data breach and hack class actions usually rest on losses or harm to the people suing. If Binance covers the theft as promised and customer balances stay whole, there is less for a class to recover. Claims could still arise over other harms, such as the freeze on withdrawals. None have been filed.
Arbitration clauses. Binance’s terms have long required customers to arbitrate disputes one by one and to give up class actions. Older Binance.com terms sent disputes to arbitration in Singapore, and later versions to Hong Kong. Binance.US’s terms, updated June 5, 2026, require individual arbitration under American Arbitration Association consumer rules and state that customers waive the right to “participate in a class action.” Courts have not always enforced these clauses. A New York federal judge refused in February 2026 to send older claims in a long-running Binance securities class action to arbitration, and Ontario courts refused to enforce Binance’s arbitration clause in a Canadian class action.
Where customers are. The hacked exchange is Binance.com, which serves customers outside the United States. U.S. courts have heard claims from people who traded on Binance.com while in the U.S., but customers elsewhere would generally look to the courts of their own country.
Binance’s Court History
Binance has faced U.S. litigation for years, though none of it involves a hack:- Criminal case. In November 2023, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering, unlicensed money-transmitting and sanctions charges, and Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program. He was sentenced in April 2024 to four months in prison and paid a $50 million fine. President Trump pardoned Zhao in October 2025.
- Securities class action. Investors sued Binance in 2020 in the Southern District of New York (No. 1:20-cv-02803), alleging it sold unregistered tokens. The case was dismissed in 2022 and revived by the Second Circuit in March 2024. In February 2026 the judge refused to send claims from before February 20, 2019 to arbitration. The case is stayed while Binance appeals that ruling.
- SEC case. The SEC’s 2023 lawsuit against Binance was dismissed with prejudice in May 2025 after the agency dropped it as a policy matter.
- Anti-Terrorism Act suits. Victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel and their families have sued Binance, alleging it let accounts tied to Hamas and other groups move money. In Raanan v. Binance Holdings (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:24-cv-00697), the court let an aiding-and-abetting claim proceed in February 2025. Binance denies the allegations.
- Stolen-crypto laundering suit. In a consolidated proposed class action in Miami federal court (Martin v. Binance Holdings, No. 1:25-cv-22100), plaintiffs who say their crypto was stolen allege Binance knowingly let thieves launder it through the exchange. An appeals court blocked an order sending the case to arbitration in August 2026, and Binance has moved to dismiss.
Past Crypto Exchange Hacks and the Lawsuits That Followed
- Coinbase (2025). Coinbase disclosed in May 2025 that bribed overseas support agents stole customer data used in scams, and it estimated the cost at $180 million to $400 million. The class actions were combined as MDL No. 3153 in the Southern District of New York and remain at the pleading stage. Details are on OCA’s Coinbase data breach lawsuit page.
- Bybit (2025). About $1.5 billion was stolen in February 2025, and the FBI attributed it to North Korea. No customer class action was found. Bybit itself sued North Korea in Washington, D.C. federal court in June 2026.
- Binance (2019 and 2022). Binance lost about 7,000 bitcoin from a hot wallet in 2019 and covered it from SAFU. About $570 million was exploited from the BNB Chain bridge in 2022. No customer lawsuit was found over either incident.
- Mt. Gox (2014). The U.S. class action over the Mt. Gox collapse ended in January 2022 with a stipulated dismissal and no class recovery. Customers are being repaid through Mt. Gox’s Japanese rehabilitation, whose trustee in October 2026 moved the repayment deadline to October 31, 2027.
- FTX (2022). FTX collapsed rather than being hacked, but the customer litigation, combined as MDL 3076 in Miami federal court, has produced settlements with some promoters and advisers, including a reported $54 million from law firm Fenwick & West in May 2026.
Questions
Is there a class action over the Binance hack?
No lawsuit over the October 29, 2026 Binance hack had been found in federal court records or announced as of October 30, 2026. Binance says user funds are safe and that it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company money. A customer suit would usually depend on customers showing they lost money, and Binance’s terms have required individual arbitration.
Did Binance customers lose money in the hack?
The crypto was taken from Binance’s own hot wallets, not from individual customer accounts, and no customer account losses had been reported as of October 30, 2026. Binance co-CEO Yi He said the exchange will cover all hacking losses. Customers could not deposit or withdraw while Binance ran security checks.
Was Binance.US affected by the hack?
Binance.US, the separate U.S. platform, says it was not affected and that all of its user funds are safe. Binance.com, the global exchange that was hacked, does not officially serve U.S. customers.
Who hacked Binance?
Binance has not named an attacker, and no government agency had attributed the hack as of October 30, 2026. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs says it assesses with high confidence that North Korea’s TraderTraitor unit was responsible, and other analysts have pointed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The FBI blamed TraderTraitor for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025.
Have past crypto exchange hacks led to class action payouts?
Rarely. The U.S. class action over the 2014 Mt. Gox collapse ended in 2022 with no class recovery; Mt. Gox customers are being repaid through its Japanese rehabilitation instead. No customer class action was found over Bybit’s 2025 hack or Binance’s 2019 hack, which Binance covered from its SAFU fund. The Coinbase insider data breach litigation is still at the pleading stage.
Sources
• TRM Labs: Analysis of the Binance Hack• CoinDesk: Potential Multi-Billion Binance Hack (October 29, 2026)
• CoinDesk: Drained Wallets Backed Customer Assets, Reserve Data Shows (October 30, 2026)
• Associated Press: Binance Reports Potential Security Issue
• The Block: Bitcoin Slides Below $77,000 After Binance Hack
• Binance.US Terms of Use
• U.S. Department of Justice: United States v. Changpeng Zhao
• U.S. Department of Justice: Clemency Grants, 2025–Present
• Second Circuit Opinion, Williams v. Binance (March 8, 2024)
• S.D.N.Y. Order Denying Arbitration of Pre-2019 Claims (February 26, 2026)
• SEC v. Binance Stipulation of Dismissal (May 29, 2025)
• Raanan v. Binance Holdings Opinion (February 25, 2025)
• FBI: North Korea Responsible for $1.5 Billion Bybit Hack
• Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee Notices
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Status
No Lawsuit Filed
Company
Binance (Binance.com)
Hack Date
October 29, 2026
Estimated Loss
About $6.3 billion (Binance estimate)
Frozen
About $3 billion (per Binance)
Binance.US
Not affected, per Binance.US
Can I Claim?
No — nothing to claim
Analysis
TRM Labs Hack Analysis
