How North Korea stole $100m in crypto - Episode 345 - by cryptohunt.it

How North Korea stole $100m in crypto

Welcome to the Cryptohunt Jam, where we spend a minute a day explaining what is happening in crypto and other game-changing ideas. As always: In plain English.

You may have heard a lot of things about North Korea, but did you know that the little country has a secretive state-run hacking operation, called Lazarus Group?

And news just broke confirming yet another hack they pulled off in 2021, stealing $100 million dollars worth of crypto from Harmony, a US based blockchain.

And if you think that’s a decent chunk of money - it’s not. This is following multiple other hacks, including one for $622 million dollar in April 2022, bringing their total loot to an estimated whopping $1.2 billion dollars.

It’s even more interesting if you put that into context: North Korea only has a population of 25 million people. That means the country’s hackers stole enough money to give each citizen $50, which is the equivalent of almost half a months’ salary.

But you probably guessed it - the already impoverished people of North Korea will probably not see a single cent. More likely, the money is going to finance the development of intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons. Not exactly what we all wanted crypto to be used for.

And tomorrow, we’ll look into just how these hacks keep happening and - spoiler alert - it has to do with something called a crypto bridge.

And since I bet you have some Whatsapp or Telegram Group with friends that might be interested in daily stories like this - why don’t you share today’s episode with them. It helps us, your friends and also makes you a great early adopter of interesting content. Triple win. We thank you a lot.

This podcast is produced by Cryptohunt.it, the easiest place to learn all about Web3