Almaty, 30 October. The attack on the Binance crypto exchange did not affect the assets of Kazakhstan’s crypto reserve, the National Bank said; it manages the reserve.
The regulator did not specify where the reserve’s assets are held or which cryptocurrencies it contains. Separate from the National Bank’s crypto reserve is the state Alem Crypto Fund of the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development: its first asset in 2025 was Binance’s own BNB token, and Binance Kazakhstan is the fund’s strategic partner. Whether the incident affected that fund had not been reported by the evening of 30 October.
By the evening, according to the analytics firm TRM Labs, the attackers had taken about 6.36 billion dollars from Binance, and about 2.7 billion had been frozen by stablecoin issuers and the Arbitrum network. TRM Labs attributes the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking unit; Binance promises to cover all customer losses and resume withdrawals within 48 hours.
What it means: The regulator has answered the question of whether state crypto assets suffered, but the answer covers only the National Bank’s reserve.
Who benefits: The National Bank gains confirmation that its chosen custody arrangement withstood the largest hack in crypto history. Taxpayers incur no direct losses. The question of Alem Crypto Fund’s holdings in BNB, which fell after the hack, remains open.
Background: The National Bank announced the creation of a crypto reserve of up to 350 million dollars. Binance has operated in Kazakhstan through Binance Kazakhstan, licensed by the AIFC regulator, since 2023, and in September 2026 the National Bank and Binance signed a memorandum on setting up a regional settlement hub of the group in the country.
We have also reported that 6.36 billion dollars was stolen in the Binance hack, with a trail leading to North Korea.
