this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2026
283 points (98.3% liked)

World News

58925 readers
2365 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Binance exchange says it will cover customer losses as it scrambles to freeze affected assets, with about $3bn located so far

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been hit by a record $6.3bn (£4.7bn) hack described as the biggest heist in history, with experts identifying North Korea as the likely culprit.

Binance said it would cover all customer losses as it froze $3bn of the affected assets.

Analysts said the exchange had been subjected to an unprecedented attack with “never-seen-before” laundering patterns as the hackers made off with assets worth billions of dollars.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago

Something like this was inevitable when people accepted being so complicit in crowdsourcing financing heavily biased towards the black market. Presumably the “never-seen-before” laundering patterns were actually the well known crypto money laundering efforts that exist that just trade and launder the pilfered crypto via high speed high frequency trading for "legit" blocks.

[–] meerstyler@feddit.org 32 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The whole idea of crypto was to cut out the banks. So the idiots holding their assets on an exchange like Binance (or FTX if anyone remembers those thieves) are just that, idiots.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Who would have thought a bunch of neckbeard tech nerds wouldn't be able to reinvent the banking system? It's almost like there's a constant thread in IT of rampant libertarian nonsense from a bunch of predominantly white men high on their own supply.

I say this as someone with over a quarter century in corporate IT. It's gotten better but my god the delusional level of tech evangalism from all angles is almost non-stop. The current flavour is AI but previously it was RP and before that it was block chain and before that it was noSQL.

Everything amounts to some mouth breather going "I can make it better than the tried and true system that has existed for decades or centuries"

Fucking hubris man. Constantly looking for problems for their "solutions"

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I do at least get the idea of very temporarily passing the money through a currency exchange. But not it sitting long enough and trusted enough for hackers to steam $6B of it. Why in the world would anyone do that

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago

Because they're speculating and have open orders.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 37 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

“This is almost certainly the largest theft of any kind in history,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist at crypto consultancy Elliptic.

If it's North Korea, and if they get to make use of it, it'd be over 1/6th of their GDP, which is pretty bonkers.

There was that massive bank fraud case in Moldova a few years back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Moldovan_bank_fraud_scandal

In 2014, $1 billion disappeared from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială.[3] This bank fraud was a coordinated effort involving all three banks working together to extract as much loan finance as possible from the banks without any obvious business rationale. Ilan Șor, a Moldovan businessman, together with Vladimir Plahotniuc and Serghei Iaralov "masterminded" the scam. Șor was chairman of the board at Banca de Economii (Savings Bank, BEM) up to 28 November 2014.[4]

Funds worth $1 billion were transferred to the United Kingdom and Hong Kong shell companies used to conceal the real owners of assets,[3][5] then deposited into Latvian bank accounts under the names of various foreigners.

The total loss from the scheme was equivalent to 12% of Moldova's GDP.[6]

A carousel borrowing scheme was applied, loans at one bank were paid off with loans from another. The massive expansion of bank lending was funded with heavy borrowing from Russian companies.

That'd be a larger relative impact than the bank fraud was on Moldova (albeit on the receiving side, not the stolen-from side).

[–] northendtrooper@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

If it's North Korea, and if they get to make use of it, it'd be over 1/6th of their GDP, which is pretty bonkers.

Kind of amazing when you put it into prospective. What is scarier is that much suddenly cash flow can help them purchase 'stuff' for 'defense'

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Good for them tbh

Anyone still into crypto in 2026 deserves it ¯\(ツ)/¯

[–] L501@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anyone keeping their money in exchanges is a moron. But with that said, I keep a decent amount of money in a few monero wallets since I use monero to pay for mullvad because there are laws being written in my state which may make vpns illegal in the future as part of age assurance laws.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

And that's fair, I think. I've considered keeping some money in Monero wallets in case I need to buy grey market HRT.

What gets me, is people dumping their entire savings into exchanges and essentially speculating on a highly volatile thing like cryptocurrency.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago

I would generalize this to any year really.

[–] LemUser@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't believe ANYTHING our government says. How do we know trumPedo didn't give NK what they need so they could steal it and split it with him?

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

Agreed. I'm extremely skeptical this was a "hack" and more like a laundering-scheme. What was offered in return, I wonder.

Remember too that this is the company whose CEO Trump pardoned as the article notes:

The company was founded by the Chinese-born entrepreneur Changpeng Zhao, now a Canadian and United Arab Emirates citizen, who was jailed for four months in 2024 after pleading guilty to money laundering violations. Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago (3 children)

They're going to cover $6.3b? They have enough cash or cryptocurrency on hand for that?

Also, what is NK even planning on doing with it? You can't eat it. Russia wants you to use rubles, China wants you to use RMB. If you trade it for regular currency, you'll be devaluing it. Is there some international black market that will take it?

[–] freely1333@reddthat.com 16 points 4 days ago

If you stole it it’s not like devaluing it means much to you lol

Half of that was in stablecoins that were frozen, so they 'only' need to recover around 3b.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Binance, which allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets, has 335 million registered users globally and had about $162.8bn in assets under custody as of the exchange’s 2025 annual report.

[–] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"Under custody" doesn't mean unrestricted and capable of being transferred freely, or even ownership. The owner of a valet parking garage might have millions of dollars worth of cars inside, but he can't just start using that value to pay off his debts, even if he does have the keys to the cars inside.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Fair, but this wouldn't be the first time depositors took a haircut to cover an exchange, and losing 4% of one's money is already a daily occurrence in crypto.

[–] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Is this the final rug pull, stay tuned...got anymore NFT's?

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (4 children)

so their going to feed their population with the money right?

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 days ago

North Korea is actually going through an economic boom right now, interestingly. And that new money flowing into the country is being put, in large part to the 20×10 policy, meant to develop regions outside Pyongyang over the next 10 years.

So, while North Korea has a litany of problems, Kim Jong Un sitting on all that money like Smaug isn't necessarily one of them. They are doing stuff with it.

[–] M137@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

they're*

How is this so hard to get right?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago

No, they're going to use it to buy parts for weapons and other sanctioned stuff. It's already dark web currency.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tolc@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Based + Juchepilled

[–] darthsundhaft@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Money is made up. It's only a problem when capitalism dictates who dies and who gets to eat. Either overthrow the gov and destroy capitalism or stop complaining about it when it works as intended.

[–] myyass@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Money is made up

It is. I took me a while to realize this. 115 grains

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

It appears capitalism has decided that North Koreans get to eat today.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Does this mean monero will be going up? Should I buy some monero?

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No. Historically crypto prices go down after a major hack. The hackers are selling right now, but Binance will buy slowly.

So buy monero now is what you're saying

[–] Ariselas@piefed.ca 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Isn't it just safe to assume that anyone investing in crypto in 2026 that isn't laundering money, or up to some other criminal activity is about to lose their investment anyway. This is just stealing from other criminals.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›