$3.1B in Stolen Binance Crypto Has Yet to Be Laundered: Elliptic

In brief

• About $3.11 billion of the $6.43 billion stolen from Binance remains in addresses linked to the theft, mostly in ETH and Bitcoin, according to Elliptic.
• The laundering has used more than 20,000 wallets on 16 blockchains and at least 36 services, but only a negligible amount has likely been cashed out.
• Elliptic expects the funds to be swapped into Bitcoin and cashed out through over-the-counter brokers over months, as happened after the 2025 Bybit hack.

Around half of the $6.43 billion stolen from Binance last month has yet to be laundered, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said in a report updated on Friday.

About $3.11 billion remains in addresses linked to the theft, mostly in ETH and Bitcoin, and those funds are "very likely" still held by North Korea, Elliptic said. A further $2.85 billion, or 44% of the haul, has been frozen or seized, mostly stablecoins that issuers such as Tether and Circle froze within an hour of the theft. That compares with around 3% frozen after the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, according to Elliptic.

The FBI has attributed the October 29 theft to North Korean hackers it calls TraderTraitor. North Korea has denied involvement.

The laundering so far has been "highly complex and clearly automated," Elliptic said. It has used more than 20,000 wallets on 16 blockchains, at least 36 services and at least 65,000 transactions, roughly one new wallet every 30 seconds.