FBI Blames North Korea's TraderTraitor for $6.3 Billion Binance Hack; Trump Is Noncommittal

The FBI said Saturday evening that a North Korean hacking group known as TraderTraitor carried out the theft of about $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. Binance said Thursday that the estimated total impact was around $6.3 billion. TRM Labs and Chainalysis had also attributed the heist to TraderTraitor, which a 2022 FBI, CISA and Treasury warning said targeted developers and IT staff at crypto firms. Chainalysis reported that North Korea stole at least $6.75 billion through the end of 2025, including $1.5 billion from ByBit in February 2025. Another researcher, Michael Barnhart of DTEX, put the minimum total at roughly $13.5 billion after a $387 million Bitget theft in September. Binance said it and others were working to freeze stolen funds, with about $3 billion located so far, and promised to cover losses from its SAFU fund. Asked at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night, President Donald Trump said his administration was still learning about the matter and that he had been told the situation was largely under control.

The right-leaning Daily Mail leads with politics: Trump appearing to contradict the FBI, a headline invoking his "Little Rocket Man" nickname for Kim Jong Un, and a suggestion that he risks looking foolish. It quotes Trump's remarks and adds background on TraderTraitor's link to Lazarus Group and the 2014 Sony Pictures hack. Left-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while right-leaning and alternative outlets had. The alternative outlets Axios and The Hindu agree on North Korea and TraderTraitor but take a different angle. They focus on the hackers' skill, speed, automation and theft totals, quoting cybersecurity experts, and Axios calls the hackers "suspected." They do not mention Trump.