North Korean hackers hold $3.11B in unlaundered Binance crypto

Binance freezes $2.85 billion in stolen assets

Binance has frozen or intercepted approximately $2.85 billion of the stolen funds. Stablecoin issuers including Tether and Circle blocked these assets within an hour of the theft.

Binance announced on Friday that it is using its own capital to cover customer losses.

Users can verify that their balances are backed 1:1 using zero-knowledge proofs.

Laundering involves 20,000 wallets and 16 blockchains

The laundering of the stolen assets has involved at least 36 services and 16 blockchains. Elliptic reported that the operation has utilized more than 20,000 wallets.

The firm described the laundering efforts as highly complex and clearly automated. The process included 65,000 transactions, with a new wallet created roughly every 30 seconds.

Stolen XRP, SOL, and TRX assets tracked by Elliptic

Binance reported a total loss of $6.34 billion following the October 29 theft. Elliptic reports that $3.11 billion of this remains in addresses linked to the attackers.

All stolen Solana, valued at $87 million, has been swapped, bridged, or mixed. While $50 million of stolen XRP has been converted, 192 million XRP worth $226 million remains unswapped in attacker-linked addresses.

Binance noted that 233.46 million XRP was transferred from five hot wallets to an attacker address between 20:05 and 20:09 UTC on October 29. Additionally, $220 million in Tron assets from the early laundering phase has already been moved.

Attackers convert $124 million into Bitcoin

Attackers have converted approximately $124 million into Bitcoin. This total, which equals about 1,650 Bitcoin, is largely attributed to the conversion of XRP.

Much of this conversion activity occurred through the cross-chain service THORChain. Specifically, 42 million XRP worth about $50 million was exchanged for Bitcoin using this service.

Since November 1, about 33 Bitcoin worth $2.5 million has been processed through Wasabi-style coinjoins. Additionally, $1.1 million in ether and Solana was deposited into the Privacy Cash pool before the service paused deposits.

Elliptic, a London-based financial services firm that has raised $220 million in funding, tracks these movements.

Automated laundering process lacks AI agent involvement

Elliptic stated that the laundering process is automated, but the firm found no evidence that AI agents are making the operational decisions. The speed of this laundering process suggests the use of conventional automation rather than an AI agent.

Elliptic predicts long-term cashing out through brokers

This pattern follows the laundering activity observed after the February 2025 Bybit hack.

Bitcoin market volatility impacts valuation

CoinGecko provides fundamental analysis of the cryptocurrency market, including tracking price, volume, and on-chain metrics. Today, the price of converting 1 Bitcoin to Indian rupees is ₹7,111,007.

Bitcoin is up 0.6% compared with an hour ago, but the price is down 3.1% compared with yesterday. The value of Bitcoin today is 1.9% lower than its value seven days ago.

Excluding fees, 5 Bitcoin can be exchanged for ₹35,555,034, while ₹50 can be exchanged for 0.00000703 Bitcoin.

The largest 24-hour price movement for the pair occurred on Thursday, which was a decline of ₹423,872, or 5.6%.