Trump says he doesn't know if N. Korea was behind record $6.3B Binance hack

US President Donald Trump said Friday he does not know whether North Korea was responsible for the hack of Binance, widely considered the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump was asked whether the attack was carried out by a North Korean hacker group. "We don't know," Trump said, according to Yonhap. "We're looking into it."

Asked about the prospects of recovering the stolen funds, Trump said he had heard the money would be recovered, adding that Binance had indicated the situation was under control. Trump also said he had long considered virtual assets to be somewhat risky.

The FBI and the US Secret Service have already launched investigations into the Binance hack, according to sources.

Reuters, citing sources, reported Friday that Binance was cooperating with the FBI and the Secret Service to resolve what is believed to be the largest cryptocurrency hack in history — $6.3 billion stolen from the exchange.

The FBI issued a statement confirming it was "aware of the incident" and said it was working with public and private partners "to determine the scope of the activity, assess potential impacts, and coordinate appropriate investigative measures."

The Secret Service also said its investigators were working around the clock with private partners, including Circle, "to identify, freeze, trace and recover funds stolen from Binance."

The federal agencies' move to open investigations has drawn particular attention given that major blockchain analytics firms have already pointed to a North Korea-linked group as the likely perpetrator.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs and others said their analysis of the attack's methods and patterns indicated a very high likelihood of involvement by TraderTraitor, North Korea's elite hacking organization.

TraderTraitor was also named by the FBI as the prime suspect in last year's theft of approximately $1.5 billion from Bybit, another cryptocurrency exchange.

Binance earlier said attackers exploited a compromised engineer's laptop and vulnerabilities in its trade approval system to make unauthorized withdrawals of $6.3 billion worth of virtual assets — the largest single hack in the history of the cryptocurrency industry. The entire theft reportedly took just 20 minutes.