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…
-
-
Aave: ‘A Thief Does Not Own What He Steals’
Lending protocol fights effort to seize $73M stolen in Kelp DAO attack
“A thief does not own what he steals.” So said Aave founder Stani Kulechov in a statement following an emergency court filing seeking to unfreeze $73 million retrieved by Arbitrum DAO in the wake of a $293 million exploit. The Kelp DAO hack on April 18 left decentralized finance lending platform Aave stuck with $230 million in bad debt after hackers, believed to be from North Korea, used stolen and unbacked rsETH tokens to take out loans on Aave. That led to a bank-run style wave of withdrawals on Aave that effectively froze the protocol. The crypto community has rallied around Aave and Kelp DAO, raising $300 million in donations…
-
Crypto Rallies to Help Aave After Hack
$230M donations pledged to help lending protocol unfreeze
Cryptocurrency firms large and small have started donating to DeFi United, a fund set up to help lending protocol Aave recover from the fallout of the $293 million Kelp DAO hack. After the April 18 theft, hackers thought to be from North Korea moved $230 million in stolen rsETH tokens — valued the same as ether, currently $2,300 — onto Aave, taking out loans using the unbacked tokens as collateral. That left Aave with a huge amount of bad debt, which in turn led to a bank-run-style series of withdrawals that left the protocol frozen. Now a group of firms, beginning with staking provider Lido Finance, have pledged donations and…
-
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…
