March 19, 2025
SEOUL – With authorities identifying North Korean hackers to be behind multiple recent cryptocurrency hackings, the totalitarian communist state is now thought to have a bigger bitcoin stash than any other nation in the world besides the United States and the United Kingdom.
Binance News, a news platform of global cryptocurrency exchange business firm Binance, recently reported that North Korea’s allegedly state-run hacker syndicates are believed to have accumulated 13,562 BTC, valued at $1.14 billion. It cited Arkham Intelligence, a Dominican Republic-based company that provides data about blockchain transactions to help identify money laundering and other suspicious activity.
North Korea-affiliated hacking groups including the Lazarus Group were pinpointed to be culprits behind a string of cyber attacks in 2024 that stole $659 million in cryptocurrency, according to a joint statement by South Korea, the US and Japan made in January. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation last month released a public statement that North Korea is responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion worth of virtual assets, the biggest hacking incident so far, which occurred last month.
Much of the stolen virtual assets were Ethereum coins, a substantial portion of which are thought to have been converted into bitcoins.
It was reported last week that the Lazarus Group converted at least $300 million of their stolen crypto into unrecoverable funds.
Lazarus Group and other hacking groups are alleged to be run by the North Korean government, and are thought to be an important source of income for it. North Korea is currently under multiple sanctions placed by the international community, as punitive actions for developing its nuclear weapons program.
A significant portion of the profits from North Korea’s illegal activities are thought to be used to fund its ballistic missiles programs and nuclear tests.
If confirmed, North Korea’s bitcoin reserve will be only behind US’ 198,109 BTC and the UK’s 61,245 BTC, according to the Binance’s estimates. It would be more than 10,635 BTC of Bhutan and El Salvador’s 6,117 BTC.
El Salvador government officially declared the use of bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, though it walked back the measure this year. Bhutan is actively engaging in bitcoin mining on a national level.