North Korea has strongly denied U.S. allegations that it orchestrated the record-breaking $6.3 billion hack of Binance, labeling the FBI's claims a "grave political provocation." Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, accused the U.S. of manipulating global opinion and suggested Washington's own plans to use confiscated crypto as a strategic reserve could implicate American actors in the theft.
The FBI had attributed the Binance hack to North Korean hackers known as TraderTraitor, confirming earlier findings by blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis. The same group was also linked to the $1.5 billion hack of crypto exchange Bybit in February 2025. North Korea has consistently denied prior hacking accusations.
Meanwhile, the stolen funds are being laundered at a rapid pace, roughly one new wallet every 25 seconds across about 12,000 wallets. As of Monday, $2.85 billion of the $6.43 billion stolen had been frozen or seized, a significantly higher recovery rate compared to the 3% retrieved from the Bybit hack. Chainalysis noted that over $1 billion in ETH and $1.42 billion in BTC had seen limited movement, while other funds were rapidly shifting across chains.
Binance reported that a net $4.72 billion had been withdrawn since withdrawals resumed on Sunday, a fraction of its total assets of about $157 billion. The exchange also introduced a zero-knowledge proof system to verify user balances for its 10 largest tokens, including BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC, covering about 95% of the stolen assets.