North Korea has come out to deny claims that the regime is responsible for cryptocurrency thefts and “all internet-related scams.”
The rejection comes less than a week after blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs published its findings, which linked North Korean state-sponsored assets to 76% of all cryptocurrencies lost to hackers so far this year.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman described the allegations as a “ridiculous slander” spread by “US government agencies, creep media, and conspiracy-instigating organizations” for political purposes.
The spokesman concluded by saying that North Korea will actively follow all necessary measures to defend its interests.
TRM Labs says North Korean hackers stole $577 million this year
Data show that the share of cryptocurrency theft by North Korean actors has increased steadily since 2020, from less than 10% to 64% in 2025, and now 76% in just the first four months of the year.
The on-chain phase began on March 11 with a withdrawal from Tornado Cash, according to TRM Labs. The attacker exploited a Solana feature called “nonce” to pre-sign transactions, then executed 31 withdrawals in about 12 minutes on April 1, resulting in $285 million in losses.
The KelpDAO breach exploited a flaw in the design of the single validator in the LayerZero bridge. After Arbitrum froze approximately $75 million in stolen funds, the attackers focused on laundering the money through THORChain, converting the stolen ETH into Bitcoin, with losses reaching $292 million.
TRM Labs attributed the KelpDAO exploit to TraderTraitor, an operation of the Lazarus Group, and says another North Korean group different from TraderTraitor was responsible for the Drift Protocol exploit.
American bodies link North Korean representatives to the Ronin and Bybit hacks
Over the past years, there have also been official reports from US government agencies linking North Korean hackers to major cryptocurrency hacks.
In February 2025, the FBI issued a public service statement definitively saying that North Korea’s TraderTraitor was responsible for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack earlier in the month. North Korea’s Lazarus Group was also blamed for the $615 million Ronin Network hack.
The FBI also issued an official report, saying that DPRK actors were responsible for the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies in 2023, from projects including Stake and Harmony’s Horizon Bridge.
