Few things would make me stand up and cheer than for every single one of these crypto bros to end up broke:

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Thursday that it had halted withdrawals after it was attacked by hackers who made off with more than $6 billion in digital coins, in what could be the biggest crypto heist in history.

The exact nature of the attack was not immediately clear. Binance’s founder, the crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, said it “does look like a hack.” The company said it had temporarily suspended all deposits and withdrawals and that its customers would be made whole.

Binance said that it would cover all losses, estimated at about $6.3 billion. The company said that it had coordinated with other crypto firms to freeze about $3 billion in assets that were swept up in the hack.

The message “don’t worry we have enough of somebody’s real money to pay you back your fake money” sounds like bullshit to me, but I’m an increasingly confused elderly person who doesn’t understand the world today.

The attack appeared to be the work of “North Korea’s elite hacking unit,” according to TRM Labs, a crypto research firm.. The attack on Binance was a stunning illustration of the risks of trading crypto, a renegade branch of finance. For years, the industry has sought mainstream respectability, pouring money into politics and earning the support of President Trump, who pledged to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.” But the industry remains a wild west, vulnerable to hacks and fraud.

News of the security breach caused chaos in the crypto industry, which has faced a string of damaging cyberattacks over the years. In February 2025, Bybit, one of Binance’s top rivals, lost $1.5 billion to North Korean hackers — the largest crypto heist at the time. The Binance attack appears poised to top it.

On social media, Mr. Zhao tried to steady nerves with a mix of soothing responses and prayer hand emojis. He suggested in a post on X that customers’ investments were safe because they were backed by an emergency reserve fund.

“It hurts, but we will survive,” Mr. Zhao wrote on Thursday evening.

He also spent time combating what he interpreted as trolling by X’s owner, the billionaire Elon Musk. After an X user compared Mr. Zhao’s statements about his customers’ deposits to the reassurances of Sam Bankman-Fried during the collapse of his crypto exchange, FTX, Mr. Musk responded with a grimacing emoji.

“Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll,” Mr. Zhao replied. He then noted that Binance had helped Mr. Musk in the past, investing $500 million in his acquisition of Twitter.

Binance has weathered years of legal and regulatory problems. In 2023, the company pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws and paid $4.3 billion in penalties to the U.S. government.

Mr. Zhao was sentenced to four months in federal prison.  After his release, Mr. Zhao received a pardon from President Trump. Binance has also forged a business relationship with the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, a major source of the president’s wealth.