"North Korea with More Coins than Musk"…Kim Sookhee, Andariel, and Others Steal 3 Trillion via Hacking [AK Radio]

Holding 1.7 Trillion KRW in Bitcoin Alone
North Korean Hackers Responsible for 80% of Global Cyberterrorism

It has become a global hot topic that North Korea holds more Bitcoin than Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. According to Arkham Intelligence, a cryptocurrency specialist firm, the North Korean hacker group Lazarus is estimated to possess 13,441 Bitcoins. This is about 2,000 more than the 11,509 Bitcoins held by Tesla.

When converted to current market prices, this amounts to $1.14 billion (approximately 1.7 trillion KRW). Until now, CEO Musk was known to hold the world's third-largest amount of Bitcoin, but this investigation places North Korea in third place, pushing Musk to fourth. North Korea also holds a large number of other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, so the total scale of its cryptocurrency holdings is estimated to be 2 to 13 times greater than this. In 2023, North Korea stole $661 million worth of cryptocurrencies, and in 2024, $1.34 billion, totaling $2 billion (about 3 trillion KRW) from just these two years.

North Korea's hacking capabilities are organized into several groups under the Reconnaissance General Bureau. The entire bureau has about 50,000 members, with approximately 10,000 hackers. This is considered larger than the hacker units of single countries such as the United States or China. Last year, North Korean hackers were responsible for over 80% of cyberterrorism worldwide, including coin theft, fake news dissemination, and virus distribution.

There are four internationally well-known major groups: Kim Suk-hee, Lazarus, Andariel, and ScarCruft, all specializing particularly in coin theft. Since Bitcoin's launch in 2009, North Korea has been training a large number of coin-specialized hackers. They continuously attempt hacking against global coin exchanges and related companies.

Reuters·Yonhap News

Continued Circumvention of Exchange Despite Strengthened International Sanctions

North Korea uses various methods to convert stolen cryptocurrencies into cash. Previously, they mainly relied on friendly countries such as China and Russia to establish shell companies and create cryptocurrency accounts to transfer money.

However, with the recent strengthening of U.S. sanctions against Russia and China, dollar exchanges have become difficult. As a result, North Korea attempts transactions wherever there is a place willing to accept stolen coins worldwide. Transactions with Middle Eastern businessmen from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been confirmed, and there is information that they also trade with Latin American drug cartels, Al-Qaeda, and Yemeni Houthi rebel groups.

Because these are risky transactions subject to U.S. sanctions, North Korea is reportedly selling Bitcoins at 10-20% below the actual market price. This has led to increasing calls in the international community to further strengthen sanctions against North Korea to block the circumvention of Bitcoin exchanges.

With the Trump administration pledging to make Bitcoin a strategic asset, it is expected that the U.S. government will begin actual Bitcoin stockpiling. Currently, the U.S. government holds about 210,000 Bitcoins seized domestically, worth approximately $19 billion, or over 28 trillion KRW. If North Korea succeeds in stealing the U.S. government's Bitcoin assets, there is a risk that the entire cryptocurrency market could sharply crash or be shaken.

The U.S. strategic assets must guarantee safety that no one in the world can touch, and if this is threatened, the asset value of cryptocurrencies themselves could be significantly destabilized. Therefore, governments around the world, including the U.S., need to seek integrated measures to strengthen the security of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In particular, establishing an international cooperative system capable of effectively blocking hacking attempts from countries like North Korea has emerged as an urgent task.