North Korea Denies FBI Claim It Stole $6 Billion From Binance

Kim Jong Un's sister called the attribution "absurd rhetoric" and hinted the U.S. was behind the record theft, without offering evidence. Binance says it has already covered about 95% of the loss.

Francis Gable

03/11/26 · 2 minNovember 3, 2026 · 2 min read

North Korea denied on Nov. 3 that it stole more than $6 billion in crypto from Binance, rejecting an FBI finding that a North Korean hacking unit carried out the largest exchange theft on record.

The denial came from Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, in a statement carried by state media. She called the U.S. claim "absurd rhetoric and nothing new," according to multiple news reports.

The attribution matters to anyone with money on an exchange. The FBI published hundreds of wallet addresses it says hold the stolen funds and asked crypto services to block them, the main way to stop the money from being cashed out.

Pyongyang Calls the Claim a Provocation

"It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads international public opinion."

Kim made that charge in the same statement. She also suggested that whoever ends up with the stolen crypto may be behind the attack, as reported by Cointelegraph, but offered no evidence tying the U.S. to it.

The FBI said on Oct. 31 that North Korea took the assets on or about Oct. 29. It calls the group TraderTraitor, the label it gave the hackers behind the $1.5 billion Bybit theft in February 2025. That money later moved through a laundering network ZachXBT infiltrated.

Blockchain analysts including TRM Labs and Chainalysis had already linked the Binance theft to North Korean hackers, according to multiple reports.

Binance Users Pull $3.6 Billion as Withdrawals Reopen

Binance restarted withdrawals in phases on Nov. 1. In the first nine and a half hours, customers took out $4.649 billion and deposited $1.01 billion, a net outflow of about $3.64 billion, the exchange said.

Binance says it has covered about 95% of the stolen assets with company money and that users will not bear the loss. The last 5% are smaller tokens that take longer to buy.

The exchange has not said when its remaining networks will reopen for withdrawals. It has promised a post-incident report explaining the attack once its investigation is complete.

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