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AI summary of a third-party reportBearishNewsDesk

FBI-linked North Korea hackers' 18,270 BTC from Binance hack sits in 19 wallets

About 18,270.2 BTC worth $1.4bn taken in the 29 Oct Binance hack, blamed on a North Korean group by the FBI, has stayed in 19 wallets, Bitcoin.com News reports.

Why it matters: The dormant haul shows how stolen Bitcoin can be traced on a public ledger yet cannot be frozen, leaving exchanges and intermediaries as the main points where recovery might happen.

InvestIn.News NewsDesk · 1 min read
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Picture from Bitcoin.com News for: FBI-linked North Korea hackers' 18,270 BTC from Binance hack sits in 19 wallets
Image: Bitcoin.com News
Original reporting: Jamie Redman, Bitcoin.com News

Key points

  • About 18,270.2 BTC worth $1.4bn was taken from a Binance hot wallet on 29 Oct, with the FBI naming North Korea as the main culprit.
  • The funds moved through 11 transfers into 19 wallets, 17 of which hold exactly 1,000 BTC each.
  • The hot wallet held about 19,200 BTC and lost almost 95% of its balance in under 20 minutes.

About 18,270.2 BTC worth $1.4bn stolen in the 29 Oct Binance hack, which the FBI has blamed on North Korea, has not moved, Bitcoin.com News reports. The coins sit across 19 wallets, all confirmed at Bitcoin block height 973732.

Binance's first assessment pointed to a compromised engineer's laptop as the way in. Chainalysis, Elliptic and TRM Labs attributed the theft to Tradertraitor, a group tied to the Lazarus Group, and the FBI named the North Korean operation on 31 Oct. The exchange's hot wallet, created in 2021, held about 19,200 BTC when it was drained, losing nearly 95% of its balance in under 20 minutes.

The haul was split through 11 transfers. The source wallet still holds about 5.495 BTC, worth $426,000, and has handled more than 16.5m BTC in incoming and outgoing transfers since 2021.

Bitcoin has no central issuer able to freeze addresses or reverse confirmed transactions, so investigators must watch exchanges and other intermediaries where the coins might pass, or obtain the private keys. Wallets attributed by Arkham Intelligence to the Lazarus Group now hold 23.38 BTC, down from about 14,000 BTC in March 2025, which the article cites as evidence of North Korea's ability to disperse and liquidate stolen coins.

Read the full story on Bitcoin.com News

Live updates on NewsFeeds:BitcoinDesk editor: Keshav Aggarwal (accountable for this page; this summary was not edited by hand)

How this was produced: an AI model wrote this summary of Bitcoin.com News’s report, which we credit and link above. Read our Editorial and AI policy. Spotted a mistake? See Corrections.

Not investment advice. Read the risk disclaimer.

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