Claims have emerged that North Korea, suspected of mobilizing hacker organizations to continuously hack cryptocurrencies, has recorded the third-largest Bitcoin holdings in the world.
On the 17th (local time), Binance News, operated by the world's largest coin exchange Binance, and the cryptocurrency data provider Arkham Intelligence reported that North Korea's hacking group Lazarus is estimated to hold 13,562 Bitcoins (BTC) worth $1.14 billion (1.65 trillion won).
This amount ranks third in the world, following the United States with 198,109 BTC and the United Kingdom with 61,245 BTC. It is more than El Salvador (6,117 BTC), which has adopted Bitcoin as legal currency, and Bhutan (10,635 BTC), which has been mining Bitcoin using abundant hydropower resources.
The significant increase in North Korea's Bitcoin holdings is presumed to have occurred after the recent hacking of Bybit, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. On the 21st of last month, Bybit was hacked, resulting in the theft of cryptocurrencies worth $1.46 billion (2.1 trillion won), which is also suspected to be the work of Lazarus. It is estimated that the majority of the stolen coins were Ethereum. North Korea is believed to have converted a substantial portion of the stolen Ethereum into Bitcoin.
North Korea is suspected of having mobilized Lazarus and others in recent years to steal cryptocurrencies through hacking of exchanges and launder the cash for use in nuclear weapons development.