How Did the Binance Hack Happen? Detailed Investigation of the $6 Billion Heist

On October 29, 2026, an attacker drained about $6.15 billion from Binance in 31 minutes by making the exchange’s own systems approve transfers, without stealing private keys; BitOK’s tracing across nine blockchains put the figure at $6.15 billion, while Binance initially reported $6.3 billion. The attacker breached a DevOps engineer’s laptop and used a service container inside Binance’s systems to submit fake withdrawal orders. On Ethereum, the attacker used EIP-7702, which lets a smart contract act for a wallet, and had Binance’s signing system sign 50 authorizations with different nonces, or transaction counters, for the busy Binance 14 hot wallet; one matched. The haul included 18,270.2 BTC, 197,540 ETH, 2.49 billion USDT and 823 million USDC.