A haul of 18,270 bitcoin stolen from Binance is now valued at about $1.4 billion, making it larger than Tesla’s disclosed bitcoin holdings and more than twice the size of El Salvador’s reserve. Blockchain investigators have linked the attack to North Korea, according to CoinDesk.
The size of the stolen bitcoin
The amount involved is significant even by the standards of the cryptocurrency market. The 18,270 BTC holding comes within 442 coins of SpaceX’s disclosed bitcoin holdings, placing it close to the level associated with the private aerospace company.
Bitcoin is a digital asset recorded on a public blockchain. While blockchain transactions can be visible, identifying the people or groups controlling particular wallets can be difficult. That makes large stolen holdings important to investigators as they track the movement and possible ownership of the funds.
Why the comparison matters
The stolen balance exceeds Tesla’s disclosed bitcoin holdings and is more than double El Salvador’s reserve. Those comparisons put the incident in the context of holdings linked to companies and governments, rather than measuring only the immediate dollar value of the loss.
The estimated $1.4 billion value can change as bitcoin’s market price moves. It therefore represents the reported value of the coins rather than a fixed cash amount.
Market picture
Moneyiar market data at 12:33-12:34 on November 1, 2026, showed:
- Bitcoin: $77,699.09, up 0.30% over 24 hours and down 3.17% over seven days.
- BNB: $711.87, up 1.08% in 24 hours and down 3.64% over seven days.
- Chainlink: $11.62, up 0.63% in 24 hours and up 2.52% over seven days.
- Billions Network: $0.0140, down 0.59% in 24 hours and up 10.04% over seven days; this figure was timestamped September 21, 2026.
The alleged North Korean connection adds a security and law-enforcement dimension to the incident, while the size of the bitcoin balance highlights the challenge of handling and tracing cryptocurrency stolen in a major attack.
