Crypto in Korea – As the south trades it, the north hacks it
Last Updated on 22 March 2025 by CryptoTips.eu
In a strange way, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is due recognition for his vision of the future, which proved totally correct. Legend has it that in 2017-2018, he saw how crazy South Korean youngsters went for crypto and Bitcoin investing, when the largest digital currency broke through the (then) legendary $20,000 level for the first time.
"The United Nations Panel of Experts (UNPE)...reported in 2023 that cyber-theft accounted for half of North Korea’s foreign currency revenue. North Korea’s digital plunder last year was worth more than three times the value of its exports to China" https://t.co/dMKqsM3DTV
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) March 20, 2025
He thus instructed his hacker collective, known as Lazarus, to start focusing on crypto. Last month, they stole $1.5 billion from Bybit and duly transferred it to Kim’s account.
Samsung
The fact that South Koreans are big fans of crypto is nothing new. Both the rise of the Bitcoin price and the political instability in the country in these last two years has brought that crypto craziness to unprecedented heights.
In March of last year, when Bitcoin traded above $70,000 for the first time, on some trading days more crypto was traded than stocks. In the country of Samsung, Hynix, LG and Hyundai, that is quite remarkable.
In November of last year, shortly after Donald Trump won the American presidential election, this happened again. Some 30% of all South Koreans (especially Millennials and Gen-Z) now own crypto coins. Each new crypto coin which is introduced on a South Korean platform usually gets more trading in Seoul than in all other countries combined.
Hacking
Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, had also noticed this. That is why his hacker collective Lazarus has been increasingly focusing on stealing crypto in recent years. By now, according to a research article that appeared in the Economist this week, about half of all foreign currency in North Korea is earned through hacking. Lazarus brings in three times more for the country than what they can get through their exports to China.
As of this week, North Korea is therefore the fifth largest Bitcoin Whale on the country ranking. A lot of that money probably comes from the crypto trading South.
