The heist was breathtaking not only for its scope but for its speed, with billions of funds vanishing in only minutes. Cryptocurrency, which runs on a decentralised exchange called blockchain, is supposed to be able to move quickly by design.

“This is not just the biggest hack in crypto. It’s actually the biggest hack in the world, ever,” Ido Ben-Natan, the chief executive of crypto security company Blockaid, said.

According to cyber security firm CrowdStrike, a US$1.5b theft in 2025 from the exchange Bybit – also a cryptocurrency hack eventually attributed to North Korean attackers – was previously the largest single financial theft ever reported.

Some details of the attack, including how the hackers got inside Binance, are…