Hackers turn about $124 million of stolen Binance altcoins into bitcoin across 20,000 wallets, Elliptic says, as Binance plans to reopen more withdrawals

The hackers who took about $6.43 billion from Binance on October 29 have swapped roughly $124 million of other stolen assets into bitcoin, according to Elliptic, which links the theft to North Korea. The firm counts about 1,650 BTC converted through more than 20,000 wallets, 16 blockchains, at least 36 services and at least 65,000 transactions. The largest share came from stolen XRP sent through THORChain: about 42 million XRP, worth about $50 million, had left, and about 192 million XRP, worth about $226 million, remained as of early Friday.

Elliptic says conversion is not cash-out. Turning bitcoin into usable money would need an exchange or over-the-counter broker, where funds could be identified and stopped, and it judges that only a negligible amount has likely been cashed out. About $2.85 billion has been frozen or seized, and about $3.11 billion, mostly ether and bitcoin, remains in linked addresses.

Elliptic said the laundering is clearly automated but that it has seen nothing showing an AI agent making decisions. Binance said on X on Friday that it aims to reopen withdrawals for HYPE, INJ, APT, PLASMA, NEAR and LTC by the end of next week, along with all tokens on networks it has already restored.