The president is weighing in after North Korea-linked hackers allegedly drained Binance hot wallets in about 20 minutes
President Donald Trump says he will review the Binance hack. That puts the White House directly into what is being described as the largest crypto theft on record.
An estimated $6.3 billion in digital assets was taken from Binance hot wallets on October 29, 2026. When the president starts paying attention to your security incident, it is no longer just a bad day at the office.
Twenty minutes, $6.3 billion
The breach unfolded fast. It started around 20:05 UTC and ran for roughly 20 minutes, hitting Binance hot wallets across multiple blockchains.
The attack has been attributed to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group. TraderTraitor is known to be linked with the Lazarus Group, the outfit behind some of the most notorious heists in crypto history.
The investigation suggested that a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer enabled unauthorized access to company assets.
For scale, the previous record belonged to the Bybit hack in 2025, which involved $1.5 billion in losses. The Binance figure is more than four times that.
How Binance is responding
Binance moved quickly to stop the bleeding. The exchange halted all withdrawals once the breach was identified.
It then said it would tap its Secure Asset Fund for Users, known as SAFU, along with its corporate treasury to cover the losses. SAFU is essentially the emergency fund Binance built for exactly this kind of scenario.
The total set aside for the cleanup is over $6.34 billion. That edges past the estimated amount stolen.
Around $3 billion in assets, primarily stablecoins, have been frozen by issuers and partners. World Liberty Financial has also been linked to the effort to freeze associated funds.
Binance’s leadership is running the response from the front. Co-CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng are actively involved, and founder Changpeng Zhao has publicly assured users that their funds are safe.
The exchange is targeting a restart of withdrawals within 45 hours. It says it is working with law enforcement agencies as it tries to hit that window.
Why Washington is watching
Trump stated he will review the matter given its vast implications. The North Korean attribution helps explain the interest. A state-linked group allegedly pulling billions out of a major exchange is not just a consumer protection story, it is a national security one.
Crypto prices took a hit after the news broke.
