Full Breakdown
Binance $6.3 B Hack Sparks Public Clash with Elon Musk
By Drooid · · How we work
In this breakdown
01
The Hack and Immediate Fallout
Late Thursday, Binance — the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — reported a theft of roughly $6.3 billion from wallets across ten blockchains. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs attributed the attack with high confidence to the North Korean hacking unit TraderTraitor, the same group linked by the FBI to the February 2025 Bybit theft. The breach drained about 167,464 ether and 1.6 billion USDT from a single Binance hot wallet on Ethereum, with most of the loss occurring within about 20 minutes.
02
Binance’s Financial Response
Binance said the total loss is approximately $6 billion, with roughly $3 billion frozen through cooperation with law-enforcement agencies and the stable-coin issuers Tether and Circle. The exchange pledged to cover all customer losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users (an emergency reserve) and its own capital. Zhao estimated a remaining gap of about $2 billion after accounting for the frozen assets and the reserve fund, describing the shortfall as “painful but manageable.” Binance paused withdrawals and indicated that they were expected to resume within 48 hours.
Visual evidence
Images from the story
03
Public Exchange Between Binance Founder and Elon Musk
Following the hack, Elon Musk posted a series of emojis—including laughing and grimacing faces—on X, and later wrote “Everyday is Zeroday.” In response, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao publicly asked Musk to stop “trolling” the exchange, reminding him of Binance’s $500 million investment in Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition, which now translates into SpaceX shares worth more than $1 billion. Zhao emphasized that Binance has “resources to draw on” and has no intention to sell the stake.
04
Official Statements & Responses
- Binance’s spokesperson confirmed the $6.3 billion figure and the $3 billion frozen amount.
- TRM Labs provided the $6.36 billion estimate and linked the attack to TraderTraitor.
- Yi He, Binance co-founder and co-CEO, said the company’s revenue is sufficient to cover the losses, so no share sale is planned.
- Musk’s emojis and “Everyday is Zeroday” comment were posted on X without further elaboration.
05
Verbatim Quotes
- “Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop,” — Changpeng Zhao, binance founder