Binance is trying to steady the ship after a jaw-dropping cyber theft that reportedly topped $6 billion, and the message from its top leadership is blunt: customers are not taking the hit. Richard Teng says the exchange is covering the full loss, rebuilding what was taken, and moving quickly to restore confidence after one of the biggest digital asset heists ever seen.
Teng said the breach was not some random smash-and-grab. He described it as a highly organized, months-long operation tied by the FBI to North Korea, with attackers using fake recruiting pitches, malware hidden inside developer tools, and AI-driven tricks to get inside systems before striking fast.
“First of all, this should not have happened, and we apologize to our users for the disruption,” Teng told FOX Business national correspondent Darren Botelho on “Varney & Co.” He added that the company had shut down the different access points, rebuilt the affected systems, and published a report so the wider industry could learn from the attack.
On the biggest question of all, Teng gave a clean answer. “No, not at all… Our company, we bear full responsibility.”
That promise matters because panic tends to spread fast in crypto, especially when the numbers get this big. Teng said Binance set aside more than enough to cover the damage, with 98% of the impacted assets already replenished and the last 2% tied up in less-liquid tokens that still need to be procured without rattling the market.
He also pointed users to the company’s proof-of-reserve system, saying balances can be checked there for reassurance. The exchange’s internal safety buffers, including its SAFU fund and futures insurance reserves, were built for a crisis like this, and Teng made clear that those protections are now doing exactly what they were designed to do.
The FBI has said North Korean hackers were behind the theft, and investigators are watching where the money moves next. Authorities believe the stolen crypto was quickly converted mainly into Ether, then spread through decentralized finance tools and instant swap services to make tracing it harder.
For Binance, the episode became a stress test of financial muscle as much as technical defense. Public records point to roughly $171 billion in reserve backing, and Teng said those resources helped the company absorb the drain without passing the pain onto customers.
There was still some turbulence after the exchange reopened, with a wave of withdrawals hitting in the first 24 hours. Teng said that pressure eased quickly, and trading and transfers have since moved back toward normal levels.
“We have set up very dedicated user protection reserves, like our SAFU fund, things like our futures insurance funds, and this has been built up progressively through the years, catered precisely for such [an] extreme scenario that we saw,” Teng said.
He leaned hard into the idea that strength matters in a business this volatile. “And this is why financial strength matters. Many platforms would not have survived an episode such as this. But we are out there, we are now operating, we are protecting every user, and we’re extremely grateful for our users’ confidence and trust in us,” he added. “By now, you look at the hourly inflow and outflows, they’re pretty much normalized, and it’s pretty much business as usual for us now.”
The episode has also revived a harsher conversation about cyber defense in crypto, where speed, scale, and weak links can turn a breach into a catastrophe in minutes. Binance’s response now has to prove that its reserves, controls, and security cleanup can hold up under real pressure, not just in a press release.
