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On the evening of 29 October 2026 an attacker moved about USD 6.36 billion out of wallets belonging to Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, across ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes from 20:05 UTC. That is the figure from TRM Labs, a blockchain analysis firm that traced every transfer, and makes it the largest crypto theft on record, about four times the USD 1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025. TRM attributes the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state hacking unit. As John Power reported for Al Jazeera, Binance said an initial investigation pointed to an engineer's compromised laptop, suspended deposits and withdrawals, and said about USD 3 billion had been frozen; bitcoin fell about 5% to below USD 77,000. Zack Whittaker reported for TechCrunch as withdrawals were paused that Binance told customers their funds were "completely safe".

Most of the haul was in Ethereum tokens and stablecoins, and issuers have frozen about USD 2.7 billion of those. The bitcoin cannot be frozen. TRM says a Binance bitcoin wallet sent 18,270 BTC, about USD 1.47 billion, to an attacker's address at 20:20 UTC, and the coins are now moving through a chain of wallets.

The carbon behind 18,270 bitcoin

Bitcoin's footprint comes from mining, which uses about 0.5% of the world's electricity on Cambridge's estimate. There are three honest ways to put a number on a particular amount of it, and they give very different answers. We worked each out with the two best-known estimates of the whole network: the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance's (138 TWh and 39.8 MtCO2e a year, from its April 2025 survey of miners) and Digiconomist's (204.44 TWh and 114.03 Mt CO2 a year, read on 30 October 2026).

  • What it took to mine. Each block creates 3.125 new bitcoin, about 450 a day, so 18,270 BTC is 40.6 days of all the mining in the world: 15.4 to 22.7 TWh of electricity and 4.4 to 12.7 million tonnes CO2e. This is the biggest figure and the one for scale, but those coins were mined in the past and may have changed hands many times since.
  • What it carries to hold. Under the hybrid method from South Pole and the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute, whoever holds bitcoin takes a share of the network's yearly emissions in line with the share of all coins they hold, because miners are paid mostly in new coins that holders give their value. Holding 18,270 BTC for a year comes to 35,938 to 102,966 tonnes CO2e. On that method, the footprint moves with the coins: from Binance to whoever now holds them.
  • What it took to steal. The theft itself was one transfer, followed by a split across a chain of wallets. Even at 20 transactions, the fee share of the network's emissions comes to about 69 kg CO2e on the higher estimate. Moving bitcoin, legally or not, adds almost nothing, because the network burns the same power whatever it carries.

The figures are ours, worked out from the network totals above and the Bitcoin blockchain at block 973,789; the crypto carbon calculator shows the method and does the same sums for any amount.

What it means for businesses

For most UK businesses, nothing changes: no UK rule asks a company to report the footprint of crypto it holds. But the theft is a reminder of how large that footprint is for the companies that do hold bitcoin, from exchanges to firms that keep it on their balance sheets. In the EU, crypto firms already have to publish each coin's energy use under the markets in crypto-assets regulation (MiCA), and exchanges its greenhouse gas emissions too. Investors and lenders asking for a full Scope 3 footprint may well ask about it.

Hvað á að gera núna

  • If your business holds crypto, note the average balance of each coin over your financial year from your wallet or exchange statements.
  • If you choose to report it, follow our guide to reporting crypto holdings: one stated method, one stated estimate, a separate Scope 3 line and a note.
  • For the background on bitcoin, Ethereum and the rest, read the carbon footprint of crypto.