North Korea Holds More Bitcoins than El Salvador and Bhutan

• North Korean Lazarus group holds more Bitcoins than El Salvador and Bhutan. 
• Lazarus group converted all the stolen Ethereum in Bybit hack into Bitcoins. 

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has become popular for crypto hacks. Chainalysis report also highlighted that most of the hacks have DPRK behind them. The recent Bybit hack is also linked to DPRK’s Lazarus group. It is now making headlines, holding more Bitcoins than El Salvador and Bhutan. 

As per the Arkham Intelligence platform, Lazarus Group’s portfolio is worth $1,159,960,333.48 at present. It holds 13,518 Bitcoins, 13,702 Ether, 5,022 BNB tokens, and other stablecoins. Bitcoins amount to a major share of its portfolio, being worth $1.13 billion. 

Lazarus Group surpassed El Salvador and Bhutan in terms of BTC holdings. While El Salvador holds 6,118 BTC, Bhutan holds 10,635 Bitcoins. El Salvador continued to buy Bitcoins ever since it announced Bitcoin as a legal tender in the country. On the other hand, Bhutan accumulated most of its holdings through domestic Bitcoin mining over the past few years. 

Lazarus Group of North Korea Converted Ethereum from Bybit Hack to Bitcoin

Lazarus group stole around $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum from the Bybit hack and sent shockwaves through the industry. It steadily laundered funds through multiple wallet addresses. The hacker group converted a major portion of the stolen Ethereum to Bitcoin using THORChain. 

Even though Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has been making efforts to trace the stolen funds, they didn’t seem to have any effect. He created the Lazarusbounty.com website which shares updates regarding the stolen funds. In one of his X posts, Ben Zhou shared that 77% of the stolen funds are still traceable. 

On the other hand, the hacker group in North Korea laundered total funds and even converted them into Bitcoins. Meanwhile, the OKX crypto exchange suspended its DEX services temporarily to improve security because the hacker group used its services to move funds. 

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