The FBI blames North Korean hackers for the $6 billion Binance theft. Custodia CEO Caitlin Long says it carries geopolitical and regulatory weight.
According to the FBI, hackers working for North Korea took more than $6 billion from Binance — the largest crypto theft on record. Close to half of it has since been frozen, largely by the firms behind two digital dollar tokens.
Caitlin Long, chief executive of Custodia Bank, argues the episode alters crypto on two fronts: attacks of this kind now come with geopolitical weight, and watchdogs may push for freeze rules to be embedded in the tokens themselves.
The FBI attributed the October 29 breach to TraderTraitor, the label it uses for a North Korean state hacking outfit, and urged crypto businesses to cut off any funds tied to the perpetrators.
The FBI is releasing information advising the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, on or about October 29, 2026. The FBI refers to this specific North…
— FBI Cyber Branch (@FBICyberBranch) October 31, 2026
In Long's view, the raid is “bound to have big geopolitical implications.” A White House cyber official said in 2023 that heists of this sort bankrolled roughly half of North Korea's missile program, according to a letter from US senators.
At more than four times the prior record — Bybit's $1.46 billion loss in 2025 — the Binance haul stands far apart.
Long described the attack as “next-level,” pointing to a breach at the same time at Chainalysis, a firm that tracks crypto flows. Its purpose, she said, was to slow the freezes — an assertion that remains unconfirmed.
As things stand, whether to freeze a stablecoin — a crypto token pegged to the US dollar — is up to the company that issues it. Per Elliptic, Tether locked 1.18 billion of its USDT tokens 37 minutes after the stolen coins landed, and Circle froze 823 million USDC three minutes after that.
Long expects regulators will want that authority built into the token's code.
“That’s gonna have regulatory implications, as US regulators will want compliance built into stablecoins’ smart contracts themselves (not operating an off-chain afterthought, as it is now),” Long added.
The freeze button has already been sidestepped. Chainalysis watched the hackers park stablecoins in a Tron lending pool, which handed back receipt tokens that no company is able to freeze.
Code has its limits as well. Elliptic puts roughly $3.21 billion of the loot in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and other coins that nobody can freeze.
According to the Senate Banking Committee, US law already obliges issuers to keep a freeze button under the 2025 GENIUS Act.
Binance says it has covered 95% of the stolen tokens. Co-founder Yi He wrote that the exchange planned to restore withdrawals for 15 currencies on November 1. CZ, Binance's founder and former CEO, confirmed that withdrawals are already open.
“BTC withdrawal is live.”
— CZ (@cz_binance) November 1, 2026
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Disclaimer: this article comes from third-party media and is provided for reference only. It does not constitute investment advice. Crypto and other financial products carry significant price volatility risk, so please make your own decisions carefully.
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