From $1.46 billion in Ether being stolen to hackers returning money: Here’s a look at some of the largest crypto heists as Binance hit with largest in history

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has revealed that it was hit by the “largest hack in history”. The hack has impacted $6.3 billion in crypto funds. As a response the exchange froze half of the impacted amount, nearly $3 billion in cryptocurrency.

The company has said it will “cover all losses” and has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals as a probe into the incident continues. According to recent updates, TRM Labs has said that a North Korean hacking group, which is state-sponsored, appears to be behind the heist.

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Even though this is the largest crypto hack ever recorded, similar hacks and heists have been seen since the digital asset’s onset.

The previous biggest heist led to $1.46 billion in Ethereum being stolen

Hackers later revealed to be from the Lazarus Group and TraderTraitor stole nearly $1.46 billion in Ethereum from Bybit in February 2025. Bybit is the world’s second-largest crypto exchange after Binance.

The hackers stole the digital assets using phishing techniques and accessed a “cold wallet" and transferred the funds. The funds were moved among a complex network of accounts. This made it harder for law enforcement authorities to trace the asset that had been illegally transferred.

The exchange which hosted over 60 million accounts from all over the world faces dire consequences after the hack. After news of the hack spread, users moved to withdraw their funds from the exchange. This resulted in digital assets worth over $4 billion being withdrawn from the exchange. Due to the large number of withdrawals, Bybit had to take massive amounts of loans to process them.

Hackers stole $624 million from Ronin Bridge Network in March 2022

Ronin Bridge was compromised in a heist where hackers stole $624 million in March 2022. The platform runs the mobile games, Axie Infinity, where players fight with characters to earn cryptocurrency. Users could transfer cryptocurrency including Ethereum from the platform.

Hackers exploited vulnerabilities in the Ronin Bridge Network and transferred 173,600 and 25.5 million USDC. The digital assets were worth over $600 million at the time. The breach was discovered nearly a week after it occurred. The network suffered another hack in August 2024, however it only lost $12 million as a result.

Hackers have also returned the money they stole

The hacks are not only limited to wallets and exchanges, but also affected DeFi or Decentralised Finance. The sector acts as a cross-chain network, according to Reuters and helps facilitate peer-to-peer transactions.

Hacker stole about $610 million from one such network, Poly Network, in August 2021. According to the Inforsec Institute, the hack was a result of poor access rights between two contracts.

Interestingly the hacker, who later came to be known as ‘Mr. White Hat’ returned the entire amount. In an online-self interview, the hacker revealed that the attack was to highlight vulnerabilities in crypto. Poly Network even offered the hacker a job as its chief security officer.

A phishing email led to a crypto exchange losing $534 million

Tokyo-based crypto exchange suffered a $534 million heist in 2018. According to Infosec the hack was started with malware. The virus infected one of the company’s employee laptops and was later identified to be linked to Russian hacking groups.

After the employee’s laptop, they were able to access private keys. The virus is said to have originated from a phishing email.

Crypto exchange Mt. Gox had to file for bankruptcy after it was hacked

The Japanese crypto-exchange, Mt. Gox, once handled about 80% of the world’s bitcoin transactions, according to Reuters. In 2014, the exchange witnessed a heist that stole about $416 million in bitcoins.

A probe later revealed that the code which the exchange worked on was poorly written and had several vulnerabilities. Hackers stole the cryptocurrency directly from the exchange’s online wallets. A vulnerability also allowed them to steal crypto from the exchange’s offline wallet. Over 24,000 users lost access to their digital assets and the company had to file for bankruptcy in 2014 once the hack came to light.

The crypto world has seen several other hacks

In 2020, KuCoin suffered from a hack that stole about $280 million in cryptocurrency, with an insider later being blamed for it. Additionally, another DeFi platform Wormhole was hit by a hack where hackers stole 120,000 Ethereum coins, estimated to be worth about $320 million, Reuters reported.