North Korea's Kim Yo Jong denies the Binance incident was its doing, calls U.S. actions hostile

[Financial News] Kim Yo Jong, director of the Workers' Party of Korea's General Affairs Department, denied that the Binance incident—which caused losses of around 8.4 trillion won in what was the largest-ever cryptocurrency hack—was North Korea's doing. She also hit back, calling it a political provocation by the United States.
The denial came three days after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the hack at Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, on the 31st of last month (local time) as the work of a North Korea-linked group.
North Korea has denied responsibility and protested when accused of being behind cryptocurrency hacks in the past, but it is unusual for a statement to be issued in Director Kim's name, as in this case.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on the 3rd that Kim Yo Jong, director of the Workers' Party of Korea's General Affairs Department, issued a statement on the 2nd saying, “The United States is misleading international opinion by making it seem as though all cyber fraud around the world is our doing. This is clearly a serious political provocation against us.”
Director Kim rebutted the FBI's identification of the North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor as being behind the Binance incident, saying, “They are trying to brand us a ‘cybercrime state.’ But the U.S. claims are absurd fabrications and nothing new.”
She continued, “This is not the first time the United States has indiscriminately linked us to various ‘cybercrime’ incidents around the world and tried to spread false perceptions of North Korea among the international community.” She condemned this as “another grave anti-DPRK violation of sovereignty that has extended into a new domain—a malicious attempt to damage the international image of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and disparage our dignity and national prestige.”
She also claimed, “The international community needs to recall once again that the current U.S. administration announced, as soon as it took office last year, that it would seize illegally stolen cryptocurrency assets and build them up as a strategic reserve for the country.” She added, “If you consider who would receive in full the large sums of so-called stolen cryptocurrency funds if they were recovered, that might provide a clue as to who was behind this hacking incident.”
She added, “On this occasion, we have once again confirmed Washington's hostile stance toward North Korea, and we are keeping a close eye on the United States as it continues to direct various provocations at our country.”
Director Kim warned, “We will have matters to reconsider in several respects regarding the extremely unpleasant hostile attitude of the United States.”
However, contrary to Director Kim's denial, North Korea is reportedly focused on laundering the cryptocurrency it hacked to evade efforts to trace it.
North Korea's stolen cryptocurrency is being converted mainly into Ethereum, and further laundering through decentralized finance (DeFi) is expected, it was reported. Hackers move assets quickly to avoid having them frozen. Issuers of stablecoins such as USDT and USD Coin (USDC) can freeze assets at specific addresses. Ethereum, by contrast, has no central issuer, making it difficult to freeze assets directly in the same way.
The Bitcoin stolen by North Korean hackers from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, is worth three times North Korea's annual export revenue. It exceeds the holdings of U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla and is more than twice the Bitcoin held by the El Salvadoran government, which has accumulated Bitcoin at the national level. The amount also comes close to the 18,712 Bitcoin held by SpaceX, the space company led by Elon Musk.
[email protected] Kim Kyung-soo Reporter