Kim Yo Jong denies North Korea stole $6 billion from Binance, calls FBI finding a 'political provocation'
Kim Jong Un's sister rejected the FBI's claim that North Korea stole over $6 billion from Binance, but made no threat, leaving room for talks with the US.
At a glance
- Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, rejected the FBI's finding that Pyongyang was behind the Binance hack, calling it 'absurd rhetoric' and a 'grave political provocation'.
- The statement was issued on Monday, November 2, and carried by the state news agency KCNA on Tuesday, November 3.
- The FBI said on October 31 that the North Korean unit TraderTraitor stole more than $6 billion from the exchange, the largest crypto theft on record.
- She warned of 'issues to reconsider' but made no threat of retaliation, which analysts in Seoul read as a signal that Pyongyang wants to keep the door to talks with Washington open.
- Binance has resumed withdrawals and says it has covered most of the stolen funds from its own money.
North Korea has denied stealing more than $6 billion from the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed the FBI's accusation as "absurd rhetoric and nothing new" and a "grave political provocation" against her country.
Her statement, issued on Monday, November 2, and published in English by the state news agency KCNA on Tuesday, is the first time she has personally answered an international cybercrime accusation. It comes three days after the FBI named a North Korean state-backed unit as the thief behind the largest crypto heist ever recorded.
What Kim Yo Jong said
Kim accused Washington of a "sinister attempt" to damage North Korea's international image by branding it a "cyber criminal state". She objected in particular to the way the United States ties hacking incidents around the world to Pyongyang.
She also took aim at the Trump administration's plan to seize stolen cryptocurrency and hold it in a national strategic reserve. The fate of the "so-called stolen cryptocurrency", she suggested, could give a clue to who was really behind the hack, implying that the United States itself stood to gain.
The sharpest line was a warning that the "very unpleasant" US attitude left North Korea with "issues to reconsider". But she named no specific step and made no threat of retaliation, which is unusual for statements issued in her name.
What the FBI and investigators found
The FBI said on Saturday, October 31, that North Korea was responsible for draining more than $6 billion in digital assets from Binance around October 29. It blamed TraderTraitor, the same unit it held responsible for the $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit exchange in February 2025, and said the group was already converting stolen coins into Ether and laundering them across many wallets.
Blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis had reached the same conclusion days earlier. TRM estimated that about $6.36 billion left Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it within roughly 20 minutes.
The heist in numbers
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Amount stolen (estimates vary) | about $6.3 billion to $6.75 billion |
| Previous record (Bybit, February 2025) | about $1.5 billion |
| Frozen or seized so far | about $2.85 billion |
| Share of losses Binance says it has covered | 90% to 95% |
| Net withdrawals since trading reopened on November 1 | about $3.6 billion to $4.7 billion |
The figures differ between investigators and the exchange because they measure different time windows and token prices move quickly. Binance has said it found no sign that wallet private keys were leaked, has resumed withdrawals for most tokens, and has promised to cover all customer losses. By late Monday, US time, it said hourly deposits were again higher than withdrawals.
Why Seoul reads the statement as an opening
South Korean analysts focused less on the denial than on its restrained tone. Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification said the measured language suggested "something is at stake", including the chance of contact between Pyongyang and Washington. Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies said the North appeared to be linking the hacking issue to any future talks with the United States.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly offered to meet Kim Jong Un again, and Pyongyang has not answered publicly. A row over the Binance theft could make a summit harder to arrange, which may be why the North chose to respond at a senior level while avoiding threats.
What it means for crypto users
For ordinary investors, including the many Binance customers in Pakistan, India and the Gulf, the practical picture has not changed with Kim's statement: withdrawals are open, and the exchange says customer balances are covered. Investigators expect the stolen funds to keep moving through mixing services and cross-chain bridges for months, as happened after the Bybit theft, and exchanges are freezing addresses linked to the laundering when they can.
Binance plans to publish a wider proof-of-reserves snapshot on Wednesday, November 4, which will show customers whether its holdings still match deposits after the theft.
