On 30 October 2026, comparisons between the Binance breach and the Bybit hack are already circulating, and the headline difference is size. The Binance breach on 29 October 2026 is estimated at about $6.3 billion, while Bybit's theft in 2025 was $1.5 billion. On those reported figures, the Binance incident is described as the largest crypto theft on record, surpassing Bybit.

Size alone does not tell the whole story, because the reported mechanisms and asset mixes also differ in what is known so far. For Binance, the preliminary investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop that may have let an attacker access a service container and submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions. No evidence of a wallet private key leak has been found so far, but that finding is preliminary.

The Binance reporting also names a specific technical route: the attacker used the Ethereum feature EIP-7702 on a wallet called Binance 14, which was in Binance's 1 October proof of reserves, turning it into a sweeper. About 204,500 ETH moved, leaving ETH backing near 94 percent, down from 100 percent on 1 October. Those details give the Binance case a named wallet and a named mechanism in early reporting.

By contrast, the fact sheet for this comparison provides the Bybit total of $1.5 billion in 2025 without a parallel breakdown of mechanism, frozen assets, or recovery in the same detail. That gap matters: a fair comparison should not fill in Bybit details that are not in the verified facts, and it should not present the two incidents as identical in kind simply because both involved large thefts from exchanges.

The frozen-asset response is a distinctive part of the Binance reporting so far. About $3 billion has been frozen, including $2.3 billion in USDT and USDC. Tether froze more than $1.567 billion in USDT, Circle froze about $823 million in USDC, Ripple froze about $200 million, and World Liberty Financial froze $27 million in USD1. Those freezes reduce the amount that remains movable, but they are not the same as recovered funds returned to users.

Binance's official response also differs in what has been stated publicly at this stage. Co-CEO Yi He said all losses will be covered from company funds and the SAFU emergency fund, which holds about $1 billion in bitcoin, and that user funds are safe. Deposits and withdrawals were suspended as a precaution, with Yi He expecting withdrawal resumption to begin within the next 48 hours, although some reports say deposits were unaffected.

Attribution is another area where caution is needed in any comparison. TRM Labs traced the Binance breach to the North Korean unit TraderTraitor, and other trackers also pointed to North Korea. That is an investigators' claim, not a court finding, and Pyongyang has previously denied hacking allegations. Attribution claims should be reported with that qualification, not as proven legal conclusions.

Market impact was immediate in the Binance case. Bitcoin fell below $77,000, down about 4.5 percent in 24 hours to $76,664 and later about $77,984, ether fell about 3.2 percent, BNB fell about 3.9 percent, and more than $1 billion in leveraged positions was liquidated in 24 hours. The investigation is ongoing, all figures are preliminary estimates, and the next proof-of-reserves snapshot on 1 November 2026 will show whether stolen assets were replaced.

FAQ: Is the Binance hack bigger than Bybit? On reported estimates, yes: about $6.3 billion compared with $1.5 billion for Bybit in 2025. Does a bigger total mean the same method was used? No, the Binance reporting names a laptop, a service container, and EIP-7702 on Binance 14, and those specifics should not be transferred to Bybit. What is still unknown? Final loss totals, the full investigation findings, and the 1 November proof-of-reserves result are all still pending.