North Korean thieves stole nearly 140 billion crowns worth of cryptocurrency from exchanges
The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced at the end of last week that it experienced a "security incident" with an estimated impact of $6.3 billion, or approximately 137 billion crowns. Meanwhile, analysts claim that North Korea is behind the theft. The communist regime has stated that this is supposedly a crude political provocation and absurd rhetoric.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which has 335 million registered users, became the target of a coordinated cyber attack at the end of October. The incident began with the compromise of a laptop belonging to one of the exchange's engineers, which allowed the attacker to penetrate the system and carry out unauthorized withdrawals.
"It's the biggest hack in history,"
Aravind Srinivasan, head of GSR, a major cryptocurrency market maker, told Reuters.
According to its annual report for 2024, Binance managed assets worth 162.8 billion dollars, which is more than 3.5 trillion crowns.
Did North Korean communists attack?
According to the American company TRM Labs, which specializes in blockchain analysis, North Korean hackers were behind the current attack.
"The attacker transferred approximately 6.36 billion dollars from Binance wallets across ten blockchain networks, with the majority during about 20 minutes,"
the company stated on its blog according to Reuters.
"Based on reliable information obtained both from the blockchain and off-chain, TRM attributes this attack to the elite North Korean hacking unit TraderTraitor,"
TRM Labs added, stating that it reached this conclusion with a high degree of certainty.
Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, however, considers such an accusation to be a gross political provocation and absurd rhetoric.
Binance is trying to reassure investors
The exchange has meanwhile frozen the affected assets and assured that client funds are safe. However, immediately after the incident, it temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals.
Binance co-founder Yi He also announced that the company will cover all potential losses resulting from the hacker attack. Deposits reportedly remain untouched and continue to function normally. Founder Changpeng Zhao also wrote on X that the incident looks like a hack, and that although he no longer runs the exchange, as a shareholder he expects full coverage of user funds.
In the first days after the described event, the value of bitcoin resisted sudden fluctuations quite well, losing only about five percent from Thursday's maximum.
Tension in the market persists
However, even that may not be enough according to analysts. Nervousness in the market has not disappeared. No regulation or technology can guarantee that an investor will never lose their funds.
The latest incident may cause investors to reassess in the future the risks associated with assets on centralized exchanges. They realize that the record attack on Binance may not be the last, which may also be aided by artificial intelligence, which further expands the capabilities of cyber attackers.
Another trigger that could send the cryptocurrency downward is the results of voting for the American Congress. Democrats have already suggested that this could have an impact on future legislation regulating the cryptocurrency market.
Ways to avoid complications include, for example, choosing regulated providers, diversifying custody, and considering your own hardware wallet for long-term investments.
This is not the only problem affecting the exchange. Zhao himself, who founded it in 2017, was sentenced to four months in prison more than two years ago for enabling money laundering on the exchange. However, last October, American President Donald Trump pardoned him.
And although the troubles of Asian cryptocurrency exchanges do not have a direct impact on Czech investors with bitcoins, due to the interconnectedness of individual markets, it can be expected that it will also affect them over time.
Is bitcoin indestructible?
Optimists nevertheless argue that the long-term trend speaks clearly in favor of bitcoin. Over the past ten years, it has increased its value approximately 110-fold. From an original alternative to the traditional financial system, it has become part of institutional investing. It owes its position primarily to the possibility of decentralization, global accessibility, and digital use regardless of state borders.
Bitcoin is based on the principle of a decentralized "ledger," the so-called blockchain, where the rules of its operation are firmly written. Part of these rules includes, among other things, that there will never be more than 21 million of them. According to experts, this ceiling will be reached around the year 2140.
Sources: original article, ČTK, Reuters, iDnes
