Payam Javan: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has attributed a massive cryptocurrency theft from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to North Korean hackers. In a statement released Saturday, the bureau linked the attack to a group known as TraderTraitor, which it described as responsible for malicious cyber activity. The same group has previously been connected to a $1.5 billion hack targeting cryptocurrency exchange Bybit last year.

The FBI urged cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain analytics companies and other industry participants to identify and block transactions associated with digital wallet addresses linked to the stolen funds. Investigators said the hackers were converting the stolen assets primarily into Ethereum and could attempt to move the money through decentralized finance platforms and instant cryptocurrency swap services to conceal its origins.

President Donald Trump, however, indicated that the investigation had not yet conclusively established North Korea’s involvement. Speaking to reporters during a Halloween gathering at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday night, Trump said the United States was still learning about the incident. “We don’t know if it’s North Korea,” he said, while acknowledging that investigators could eventually determine that the country was responsible.

Ari Redbord, chief policy officer at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, said the hackers would likely attempt to divide the stolen funds into smaller transactions and move them through less prominent cryptocurrency exchanges to avoid detection. He warned that laundering the assets could take months. Redbord described the incident as “bank robbery, in this case, at the speed of the Internet,” while emphasizing that blockchain tracking tools could help investigators trace transactions, disrupt laundering efforts and potentially recover the stolen money.

The attack, which occurred Thursday, involved approximately $6.3 billion in Bitcoin and other digital assets, according to the report. Binance announced Saturday that it had sufficient reserves in the same digital currencies to cover 90 percent of the missing assets and pledged to fully reimburse affected customers. The incident has renewed concerns about cybersecurity risks in the cryptocurrency industry and highlighted the growing role of international blockchain investigations in tracking large-scale digital thefts.