North Korea’s timing was inconsiderate; I’m in the middle of an election night guide to crypto and AI super PAC spending (subscribe to get it before Tuesday!).
But I wrote up a primer on the Binance hack, answering questions I’ve gotten about North Korea: https://www.citationneeded.news/its-always-north-korea/
How do we know it’s North Korea? Few attackers can pull off thefts this big, and DPRK hackers have a signature in how they fund attacker wallets, make test transactions, and launder funds.
Tether and Circle froze $2.4B+ which they can burn and reissue to Binance. Binance says another ~$600M was frozen by other protocols; that may be harder to get back. Binance’s losses will likely exceed what North Korea walks away with. (More on the hack itself, from last night: https://www.citationneeded.news/binance-theft/)
To cash out, the DPRK runs funds through mixers and bridges, then no-KYC exchanges, money mules, escrow services, platforms like Huione, banks and platforms in less-regulated jurisdictions, and OTC brokers. Sometimes they skip cashing out; they’ve used stablecoins directly for military procurement.
What’s it for? Under heavy UN sanctions, crypto theft has become a major source of revenue for North Korea. US officials also claimed in 2023 that about half of the country’s ballistic missile program was funded by cybercrime.
#crypto #cryptocurrency #binance #NorthKorea #DPRK