The crypto industry is reeling from a massive hack at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Digital assets worth more than $6.3bn (£4.7bn) have reportedly been taken from Binance by North Korean hackers, apparently after a laptop belonging to one of its engineers was hacked.
The company said its teams are “working around the clock” to resolve the issue.
“Rest assured that user funds are completely safe,” a Binance spokesperson said in a statement.
Binance said it had worked with partners to freeze the affected assets, with about $3bn located so far. It gave no update on the status of the remaining $3.3bn as the Binance co-founder Yi He said the company would cover “all hacking losses”.
TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence firm that tracks the industry, has declared that an elite North Korean hacking unit called TraderTraitor was responsible for the security breach at Binance.
TRM Labs also calculated that the breach was “the largest crypto theft on record”.
News of Binance’s security breach sent bitcoin falling by more than 3% to a six-week low of $76,368 – although it has since recovered back to $78,335 (-0.6%).
US stocks linked to cryptocurrencies fell in after-hours trading.
Shares in the crypto exchange Coinbase Global are down 4.8%, while Strategy, the US company that has been a massive buyer of bitcoin, fell 5.75%.
Britain’s housing market is feeling an autumnal chill as rising mortgage rates hit demand.
UK annual house price growth slowed to 0.5% in October, the slowest pace since January 2024, data from Nationwide this morning shows. That is down from 0.8% in the year to September.
On a monthly basis, the average price of a house was unchanged this month.
The jump in fixed-rate mortgages to almost 6%, on average, appears to have dampened buyers’ enthusiasm, pushing up the cost of repaying a mortgage.
Today’s key events
• 9.30am GMT: UK GDP quarterly national accounts – April to June 2026
• 10am GMT: eurozone GDP report for Q3 2026
We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day on our business live blog …
