North Korea rejects blame for record $6.3bn Binance crypto theft

North Korea has officially rejected claims that it orchestrated the theft of $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from the exchange Binance. The denial came from Kim Yo-jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un and director of the General Affairs Department. She described the allegations as absurd rhetoric and a sinister attempt by the United States to damage Pyongyang's public image.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and independent cyber analysts maintain that North Korea led the attack. They identified the operation as the work of TraderTraitor, a state-backed group also known as the Lazarus Group. This incident is currently the largest cryptocurrency hack in recorded history.

Kim Yo-jong issued a statement on Tuesday accusing the US of making a trite provocation. She argued that the US misleads international public opinion by suggesting that all cyber crimes around the world are the deeds of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. She stated that the DPRK government consistently opposes malicious acts in cyberspace.

The accusation fits a pattern of recent cyber operations linked to Pyongyang. The same TraderTraitor unit was blamed for a $1.5 billion hack of the exchange Bybit in 2025. Research groups, including the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, say North Korea systematically builds its cyber forces by recruiting promising university students and sending them to hacker units overseen by the national intelligence agency.

The FBI has asked industry partners to help block transactions involving cryptocurrency accounts connected to the group. The agency is working to trace the stolen funds. This effort follows the initial technical findings from Binance regarding how the breach occurred.

Binance said that initial checks showed an engineer's laptop had been compromised. This allowed an attacker to make unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange suspended all transactions immediately after the breach but has since resumed trading in major cryptocurrencies. It worked with issuers to freeze the assets impacted by the hack.

On Sunday, Binance reported that customers withdrew more than $3.6 billion in assets as the platform reopened. The company stated that it has covered approximately 95% of the stolen assets so far. It has repeatedly pledged to cover all losses linked to the attack.