SEOUL – North Korea rejected US accusations linking it to the multibillion-dollar Binance cryptocurrency theft, with Kim Yo Jong calling the allegation a political provocation in a statement carried by state media on Tuesday. Her denial challenged an FBI attribution that has put the exchange’s security crisis at the centre of a diplomatic dispute.
Kim, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, described the US allegation as “absurd rhetoric” and accused Washington of trying to brand the country a cybercriminal state. The FBI says North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion from Binance on or about October 29.
The statements address the same theft from different positions. North Korea denies responsibility; US investigators identify a North Korean operation as the perpetrator. Neither the denial nor the public accusation answers every question about how the exchange was breached, where the missing assets are now or how much customers can independently verify about their backing.
Arab News reported Kim’s statement as saying the United States was misleading international opinion by presenting cybercrimes around the world as North Korea’s work. She called that a “grave political provocation” and said her government’s consistent position was to oppose malicious acts in cyberspace.
KCNA, North Korea’s state news agency, listed the statement among its November 3 releases. CoinDesk’s account likewise reported her rejection of the Binance allegation. The statement was not an independent technical examination of the breach, and the material reviewed did not supply an alternative forensic account identifying another attacker.
The competing US position is set out in an October 31 FBI cyber alert. The bureau attributes the theft to North Korea and calls the specific malicious cyber activity “TraderTraitor”. Its notice says investigators observed actors converting stolen assets primarily into ether and expected further laundering through decentralised-finance and instant-swap services.
That is a law-enforcement attribution, not a verdict issued after a trial. CoinDesk reported that the FBI had not publicly released its full forensic findings. The distinction does not negate the bureau’s allegation; it identifies a limit on what readers can test from the public record.
CoinDesk said the FBI also identified cryptocurrency addresses associated with the stolen funds and urged exchanges and blockchain services to block transactions involving them. An address can help an investigator follow a transfer, but connecting that address to the person or organisation controlling it requires additional evidence. The public dispute is therefore about responsibility, not simply whether suspicious transactions can be seen.
Published estimates put the theft at roughly $6.3 billion to $6.4 billion, while the FBI’s alert uses “more than $6 billion”. This article uses the bureau’s broader figure rather than presenting different estimates as interchangeable exact totals. CoinDesk has described the breach as the largest cryptocurrency theft on record.
For Binance customers, responsibility for the attack is only one part of the problem. Another is the exchange’s ability to replace the assets that supported their balances. A promise to cover losses, a reserve snapshot and unrestricted access to withdrawals are different things, even when they are announced as parts of the same recovery effort.
In an October 31 update reported by CoinDesk, Binance said it had replenished 90% of the stolen cryptocurrency using its own resources. That was a dated company estimate, not a verified measure of the proportion restored as of Tuesday. The exchange said less liquid tokens accounted for the remainder and could take longer to acquire.
Replacing assets is not the same as recovering the stolen coins from an attacker. Binance can buy replacement tokens with company money while investigators continue tracing the original proceeds. Conversely, a third party freezing suspect assets does not by itself establish that the exchange has received them back or that every affected customer can withdraw without restriction.
The initial security explanation also remained provisional. CoinDesk reported that investigators first suspected a compromised employee laptop, but that Binance subsequently identified additional breach points. The company said it had found no evidence that wallet private keys were exposed. That statement should not be read as a claim that its wider security systems were unaffected.
The denial adds political stakes without resolving those operational questions. Kim said the accusation confirmed Washington’s hostility and referred to issues North Korea would reconsider, Arab News reported. The statement did not specify concrete measures.
The public record now contains a categorical North Korean denial, a categorical FBI attribution and an exchange still explaining its security and asset-replacement response. The full forensic basis of the attribution, and an independently verified final accounting of the stolen funds, remain outside the material reviewed.
