Binance has no ⁠cyber ​insurance and will fund customer reimbursements through company reserves after hackers stole $6.3bn in the world’s largest cryptocurrency heist, Reuters is reporting, citing a ⁠source close to the exchange.

Binance has said the attack began with a compromised employee laptop and involved multiple breach points. ⁠It found no evidence of private-key leakage and said roughly $3bn of affected assets ​had been frozen.

The exchange holds ‌directors’ and officers’ (D+O) liability insurance, ‌Reuters’s source said, describing crypto cyber insurance as “virtually impossible” for crypto ‌companies to obtain.

The source also said Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) had no external insurance or reinsurance backing.

D+O cover could respond to claims against executives alleging failings in their oversight, rather than replace stolen assets.

The $6.3bn Binance hack could mark an “inflection point” for digital ⁠asset insurance buying, with firms needing to look beyond large specie limits and examine the breadth of their ⁠protection, Relm CEO ⁠Joseph Ziolkowski told Reuters.

Exchanges ​and custodians had historically prioritised relatively inexpensive specie cover, he said, describing an approach of “form over function”. ⁠More than $1bn of specie limits was available globally, with less available for cyber cover including digital asset theft.

Ziolkowski described ⁠specie as largely protecting private keys. But a malicious intrusion elsewhere in ​a transaction approval process could ‌enable theft while those ‌keys remained intact.

Binance has said it found no evidence of private-key ‌leakage and identified multiple breach points.

Cyber policies could respond to such intrusions where their wording expressly included digital asset theft, Ziolkowski said. He argued buyers should examine protection across their operations and transaction signing arrangements.

Even holding cyber insurance would not ‌establish that a particular loss was covered, Ed Lewis, global lead for cyber and technology risks at RPC, told the news agency.

“A cyberattack ​tells you how the trouble started. It does not tell you which policy pays for the missing money,” he said.

A precautionary suspension of withdrawals might not satisfy the policy trigger for business interruption cover, ⁠Lewis said. Stolen assets, response costs, lost income and customer claims each ​required analysis ​against the facts and wording.

Binance ​has pledged to meet customer losses through its ​SAFU reserve and company ‌resources, announcing more ​than $6.34bn of ​company funds separate from roughly $3bn of frozen assets.

Lewis said frozen assets had not necessarily been returned, while customer reimbursement did not establish that an insurer was paying. “A record theft does not automatically become a record insurance loss,” ‌he said.

Stocks have tumbled following the hack on the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

The price of bitcoin fell toward $77,000 from more than $86,000 earlier this month, and a US-based blockchain intelligence firm said a North Korean unit was likely behind the attack that impacted more than $6bn worth of crypto at Binance.

Coinbase Global fell 12.7% even though it reported stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Strategy, which says it owns about 4% of the total supply of bitcoin, fell 6%, AP reported.

It also reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, while saying its chief financial officer will resign next week for personal reasons.

In the US, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Michael Selig told reporters that “we have the ability to trace all this in the blockchain”.

Speaking to CNBC, Selig said it was “very concerning” that there had been “several cyber incidents involving crypto” and the CFTC has regulations in place to prevent this sort of attack.

He added that he wants to see a “federal option” so that people will register with the CFTC.

There’s a risk that disruption in the cryptocurrency world spreads to mainstream finance, given financial institutions have been embracing crypto in recent years.

So explains professor Iwa Salami, professor of financial law and regulation and director of the Centre of FinTech at the University of East London (UEL):

“It would be misleading to suggest that mainstream finance, in the UK or internationally, is becoming reliant on crypto-assets. The growing interest among major financial institutions is primarily in blockchain technology and its applications, particularly asset tokenisation, payments and settlement. However, institutional exposure to crypto-assets, particularly Bitcoin and Ether, is also increasing through investment products and trading services.

“As these links deepen, risks originating in crypto markets could increasingly spill over into traditional finance, potentially posing wider financial stability risks. This reinforces the importance of robust regulation, effective risk management and oversight of the growing interconnectedness between crypto markets and mainstream finance.”

Tom Robinson, co-founder of analytics company Elliptic, has given the FT a pithy explanation of how hacking one developer’s laptop would have let the attackers into Binance:

“Binance’s engineers manage the systems that run the exchange.”

“A DevOps engineer’s laptop typically holds the access needed to log into those systems. An attacker who controls that laptop can use the same access.”

“They got Binance’s own systems to send the money for them.

Binance is working with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, token issuers and other exchange to trace and recover stolen funds, Richard Teng continues.

Teng says, in his video message:

“We will do everything in our power to make sure that these bad actors are held accountable.”

Strategy chair (and bitcoin zealot) Michael Saylor says Binance needs to deliver on its promise to compensate customers affected by the hack

Posting on X (as his company’s share price drops around 10%), Saylor explains:

Binance has committed its own balance sheet to making customers whole. I expect it to deliver. Our industry will learn from this incident, strengthen security, and emerge stronger and more resilient.

As Strategy owns around 848,000 bitcoin, it needs this to happen!

Earlier today the cofounder and former CEO of Binance asked Elon Musk not to “troll” the company, and instead “show some support”.

Changpeng Zhao appeared to be riled by Musk posting several emojis in response to posts on X about the hack.

That included a grimace in reply to a post reminding peopl that collapsed crypto exchange FTX had, like Binance today, said it had enough funds to cover clients’ holdings.

In response, CZ reminded Musk that Binance owns a stake in his SpaceX business:

Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop. Our SPCX shares (from our $500m investment in your Twitter takeover) are worth more than a billion. Would appreciate if you show a little support. Thanks!

Binance’s chief customer service officer Yi He weighed in too, saying:

Reporting to the major shareholder: Our company’s revenue for the year is sufficient to cover the losses, so we do not yet need to sell the SpaceX shares you are bullish on.

The tech-focused Nasdaq is also suffering early losses: it’s down 2.5%.

Chip stocks are leading the sell-off, after Intel startled Wall Street last night with surprisingly weak financial forecasts.

Shares in Intel, which warned of a “slowdown” in the PC market, have plunged by almost 29% in early trading, with rival AMD (-9.3%) and chip designed ARM (-9.9%) close behind.

The attack does not currently appear to pose a significant solvency risk for Binance, according to Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors.

Farrell said (via CNBC):

“The most important takeaway for markets is that this does not currently appear to create meaningful solvency risk for Binance.”

There’s a risk that bitcoin drops to levels hit in the summer, warns David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

Bitcoin sliced through support at $80,000 overnight as news came through of a security breach at Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance estimates that the incident could involve as much as $6.3 billion.

It has frozen around $3 billion in cryptocurrency so far, and has promised to cover all losses. There is speculation that the hack originated in North Korea. This is a tough one for cryptos. Bitcoin had done a solid job in holding on to support around $80,000 over the past six weeks. But the break was conclusive, as bitcoin closed in on $76,000. The next big level of support is $75,000. But a break below here would open up the possibility of a retest of summer lows.

Back in July, Bitcoin slipped as low as $60,000, just half its all-time high, as this chart of the year’s action shows:

Bitcoin is dipping lower – it’s now down 1.85% today at $77,374, adding to last night’s 3% drop.

That might indicate some nervousness about holding crypto assets…

...except some non-crypto assets are also weaker today. Spot silver, for example, is down 4% and just dropped below the $50/oz level for the first time since November 2025.

The Binance hack shows the perils of accidentally clicking on a rogue link, argues Suzy Pallett, president of international cybersecurity conference Black Hat,

“The Binance incident looks set to become the biggest crypto heist in history, and what’s striking is how familiar this playbook is. Billions can vanish because one person clicked the wrong thing, and with cyberattacks like these, it all starts by compromising a person, not a platform.

“The question now is not only who executed this attack, but how money like this gets laundered and cashed out once it’s been stolen. It’s a complicated process, and if we really want to understand how hackers execute attacks like these, we need to be working closely with the people who hunt these perpetrators down.

“Journalists, law enforcement, and the cybersecurity industry have a wealth of intelligence to offer when it comes to large-scale financial attacks, and with international collaboration between these communities, we can collectively work faster and more efficiently to protect against these common exploits.”

[as covered earlier, the hack appears to have been perpetrated through a “compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop”, though Binance insist it was a more complex attack process than just a single click…]

Alexander Shirtcliff, head of commercial disputes and class actions at legal firm Edwin Coe, suggests Binance customers might need to consider legal action to recover losses:

Although Binance insists it has “publicly committed to cover losses”, Edwin Coe suggests “blandishments” from the board of Binance are largely for press consumption.

Shirtcliff says:

Taking the current standard user terms at face value, they contain limits to Binance’s liability to customers and I see no commitment on using the Secure Asset Fund. Neither will it be quick. How Binance decides to distribute the funds, to whom and when, the value of Bitcoin being volatile, will create a constellation of additional legal issues for the exchange which it will take time to work through.

“It is very unlikely that voluntarily distributed reserves will be enough and customers will have to seek to compel Binance to make them whole. That will mean litigation. A collective action is sometimes the only way for some in cases like this to seek recourse, pooling resources to make litigation viable for many individual victims.”

Shirtcliff also suggests there could be litigation concerning who owns the assets which have been frozen since the hack was discovered.

The Binance theft is a reminder that cryptocurrencies are not covered by the UK’s bank deposit protection scheme (which compensates customers if a bank fails).

James Broomhall, senior associate at Grosvenor Law, says victims of cybertheft often have to turn to the courts:

Unlike money held in a UK bank account, which may be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £120,000 per eligible depositor, cryptoassets generally do not benefit from any equivalent compensation regime.

As a result, victims of major crypto thefts are often forced to pursue urgent tracing and recovery action through the courts, including Norwich Pharmacal applications to compel exchanges and other third parties to disclose information identifying fraudsters and tracing the movement of stolen assets.

Justas Pukys, senior product manager at Surfshark, a cybersecurity company), reckons Binance customres shuold watch out for a potential second wave of scams targeting them.

That would involce criminals impersonating Binance representatives through fake security alerts and requests to transfer funds into “safe” wallets.

Pukys explains:

The reported $6.3bn Binance hack is alarming, but cryptocurrency holders should also be on high alert for a potential second wave of scams. Criminals could exploit the panic surrounding the incident to trick people into handing over their savings.

Scammers may pose as Binance representatives, sending convincing emails or text messages warning that accounts are at risk or offering to help recover stolen funds. Some could even claim to be from Binance’s security team, urging users to transfer their cryptocurrency to a supposedly ‘safe’ wallet. In reality, following these instructions could mean handing your money directly to criminals.

Reminder: Binance’s Richard Teng reassured customers this morning that “your money is safe, and we’re covering every loss”.

Binance’s breach may show the “industrialisation of state-sponsored crime” is underway, argues Keystone Law’s fraud & financial crime partner Syed Rahman:

The more important number in this hack may not be $6.3bn. It may well be 20 minutes. The attacks had the advantage of preparation and coordination. Everyone responding had to establish what happened in real time. The challenge for the industry is where collaborative efforts in recovering those losses can ever match the speed of a pre-planned attack without sacrificing safeguards that make financial intervention legitimate.

In essence, the real concern is not that the blockchain failed. It is that systems trusted to control billions of dollars may have been compromised. The weakest point in institutional crypto custody may no longer be the technology holding the assets, but the people and infrastructure authorised to move them.

We may be witnessing the industrialisation of state-sponsored crime. If North Korean involvement is confirmed, this is not simply a criminal group exploiting a weakness within an exchange. It is a state-linked operation capable of extracting significant sums from global financial infrastructure in minutes.That demands a very different response from governments.

Elsewhere in the financial world, NatWest has rounded out the Q3 bank earnings season with a bit of a whimper.

Pre-tax profits were up just 1.9% for the July to September period, hitting £2.2bn.

That’s despite an 8.9% rise in net interest income to £3.6bn, having been offset by an 81% jump in impairment charges - the sums they use for soured loans - from £153m to £277m.

However, NatWest said that impairment charge increase is a comparative issue, reflecting the one-off release of provisions last year, rather than any change in conditions for its borrowers, which has remained stable.

They’ve also reported higher operating costs, primarily linked to the integration of wealth management business, Evelyn Partners, which the bank bought earlier this year.

The Binance theft raises ‘serious questions’ for cryptocurrency exchanges, explains Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at security firm ESET

“It is worrying just how quickly billions of dollars can disappear in a modern-day cyber heist, but it is unbelievable that a single laptop has enough privileged access to enable it. If a single device can authorise enormous cryptocurrency transfers, hackers can simply target systems and people until they find a weak link. And there is always one.

“While blockchain transactions can be traced, recovering stolen cryptocurrency is far more difficult, especially when attackers move funds across multiple wallets and blockchains extremely quickly using simple and well-known evasion tactics. North Korea has become increasingly sophisticated in using cybercrime to generate enormous sums of money, but this raises serious questions as to whether cryptocurrency exchanges are doing enough to protect customer assets and whether security and regulation is keeping up.

“Consumers who choose to keep cryptocurrencies should spread their digital assets across multiple reputable platforms and secure hardware wallets (such as their own USB) to reduce the risk of losing everything in a single attack.”

News of the Binance heist could knock confidence in crypto assets, suggests Cristiano Ventricelli, vice president of digital assets at Moody’s Ratings

“The incident underscores the heightened cybersecurity risks associated with hot wallets, a component already exposed by the 2025 hack on Bybit cryptocurrency exchange. It also illustrates the risk concentration inherent in large, centralized intermediaries.

Stronger institutional controls can reduce some vulnerabilities, but the scale of assets under custody can amplify the impact of a successful breach.

The broader credit and industry implications will depend on the ultimate losses, affected counterparties, asset recovery, and importantly, whether the incident leads to wider disruption or loss of confidence across the digital-asset ecosystem.”

Blockchain analysis company Chainalysis also believed the Binance hack was probably conducted by North Korea’s TraderTraitor.

Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin wrote on X:

We live in unprecedented times. But DPRK are up to their old tricks. We assess @binance hack for $6.4B was likely done by DPRK group TraderTraitor due to links to previous hack.

Industry partners have already frozen ~$3B and we @chainalysis continue to follow all of the funds.

TRM have also produced a breakdown of the digital assets swiped from Binance.

They say:

Ethereum accounts for about $3.79bn. That includes 200,630 ETH and 185 other tokens, among them 1.875 billion USDT, 823 million USDC and 88.5 million RLUSD.

Bitcoin outflows total 18,270 BTC, about $1.47bn.

Tron outflows total 612.7 million USDT and 46.4 million TRX, about $628m.

The XRP Ledger lost 233.46 million XRP, about $296m.

Solana outflows total 970,500 SOL, about $96m.

Arbitrum, Optimism and Base combine to about $39m, including 74.6 million ARB taken on Arbitrum. Avalanche outflows total about $28m, and Polygon outflows total about $10m.

Most major cryptocurrencies have fallen in value since news of the Binance theft broke, Coinmarketcap data shows.

That includes:

• Bitcoin: -2.35% over the last 24 hours, to $77,940

• Ethereum: -3.6%, to $2,227

• BNB: -5.6%, to $706

• Solana: -2.67%, to $97

• Chainlink: -3.1%, to $11.02

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng adds that around half the assets stolen in the hack have been frozen:

He’s posted a list of points which customers ‘need to know’:

• Your funds are safe

• Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and company funds

• Estimated total impact: ~$6.3B, with ~$3B frozen on-chain so far, in coordination with our blockchain partners

• No evidence of any wallet private key leak

• Deposits are unaffected and operating as normal

The hacker who swiped over $6bn of digital assets from Binance is in the process of switching stablecoins (which can be frozen) into etherium (which can’t), according to media company Decrypt.

Decrypt explains:

Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle moved quickly to blacklist the suspected attacker’s addresses in order to freeze a portion of the funds and make them inaccessible.

As centralized issuers, they each have the ability to blacklist addresses so their tokens cannot move, and more than $2 billion of those two tokens have been frozen so far by different stablecoin providers. ETH has no issuer, so every dollar converted before a freeze lands is out of their reach.

Jim Reid, market strategist at Deutsche Bank, reports:

Crypto assets have come under pressure after Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, suspended deposits and withdrawals following a suspected hacking incident. Bitcoin is down -0.40% this morning, following a -3.03% slide yesterday.