North Korea has “industrialized” cryptocurrency theft, turning it into a primary mechanism of revenue for the pariah state. That’s the conclusion of a new report by crypto security firm CertiK, which found that North Korean hackers have stolen $6.75 billion over the past decade, $2.6 billion of it in the past 18 months alone. The biggest incident by far was the 2025 Bybit hack, which saw $1.5 billion drained from the exchange. CertiK pointed to the “precision and scale of North Korean operations,” noting that in the past few years there have been fewer attacks that systematically targeted the highest-value opportunities. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been…
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Latest Hack Pushes April Crypto Losses Over $600M
More than a dozen thefts this month alone
Just days after the Kelp DAO bridge was hit with a massive $293 million exploit, yet another protocol has been hacked. While the amount stolen was comparatively small — just $3.5 million — there have been more than a dozen reported hacks/exploits this month alone. And it pushed the amount stolen over $600 million, with another eight days to go. Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Volo said on April 22 that three of its vaults had been robbed, but that another $28 million in other vaults is safe. All funds have been frozen until Volo figures out what happened and how to prevent a recurrence. “We want to be clear,” Volo…
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Circle Sued Over Inaction on Drift Protocol Theft
Class-action lawsuit seeks $230 million from stablecoin issuer
Stablecoin issuer Circle was widely criticized for allowing Drift Protocol hackers to steal $230 million in USDC tokens over the course of eight hours without acting to freeze the stolen funds. Now, it is being sued. Law firm Gibbs Mura on Tuesday filed a $230 million suit against Circle for “knowingly permitting the attackers, reportedly tied to North Korea’s government, to offload $230 million of their spoils over the course of several hours by using Circle’s own stablecoin USDC and its blockchain bridge CCTP, instead of freezing the funds.” It added, “Circle allegedly took no action to freeze the funds, despite having the technical and contractual authority to do so.”…
