How Binance’s $6.3 Billion Hack Went Down

At about 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, a string of unusual transactions started to cause alarm at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Money was pouring out of the company’s accounts, a multibillion-dollar deluge of digital coins. It had all the hallmarks of a crypto heist — a high-speed bank robbery conducted over the internet.

As the news spread, Binance’s top executives put together an informal war room on Wea, the company’s internal messaging system, with about 100 participants, including specialized cryptocurrency tracers and security personnel.

They eventually transitioned to a mass conference call, with 100 boxes on the screen, where employees took turns muting and then unmuting, communicating in a mixture of English and Chinese. Among them was He Yi, Binance’s co-chief executive, who is seven months pregnant, and worked through the night from her base in Abu Dhabi, taking a call at 3 a.m. local time.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/31/technology/binance-hack-crypto-north-korea.html