North Korea continues to openly steal huge amounts of cryptocurrency, with sanctions and nuclear weapons demands as the main driving factors

ME News Report, April 12 (UTC+8), North Korea has long and openly carried out large-scale cryptocurrency thefts, which have become its core method for breaking international sanctions and acquiring hard currency. Due to sanctions blocking traditional financial channels, North Korea relies on state-backed hacker organizations to continuously target exchanges and DeFi protocols with phishing, infiltration, and smart contract exploit attacks. The stolen funds are mainly used for ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development projects. On-chain data shows that in recent years, North Korean-related hackers have stolen billions of dollars annually, with a pattern of “decreasing frequency, increasing amount per incident,” and their money laundering chains are mature and difficult to trace across borders. The article suggests that as long as sanctions and weapons development needs remain unchanged, North Korea’s crypto theft activities will continue. (Source: PANews)