The FBI said the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for stealing about $6.3 billion worth of digital assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance on Thursday.
The FBI announced this on Saturday in a press release that it refers to this specific North Korean malicious cyber activity as “TraderTraitor,” where it most recently observed stolen assets being converted largely into Ether (ETH).
These assets are expected to continue to be converted using DeFi and instant swap services as hackers move on to more advanced stages of money laundering.
The FBI asked private sector companies, including THORNode operators, RPC node operators, instant exchanges, DeFi services, blockchain analytics firms, and other digital asset service providers, to block transactions with or derived from addresses used by TraderTraitor actors to launder these stolen assets. A complete list of addresses can be found in the press release.
Cointelegraph reported earlier this year that hackers linked to North Korea stole about 60% of the value lost in crypto hacks in 2025.
North Korean defense spending increased
Related: Crypto Losses from North Korean Hackers Increased 51% YoY in 2025: Report
This Insights comes from a CertiK report that attributed more than $2 billion of the estimated $3.4 billion in crypto security losses in 2025 to North Korea-linked groups in 79 of 656 incidents documented this year.
According to independent research, North Korea does not publish credible budget data Organization MilitarySpendThe median consensus puts actual annual defense spending at up to $6 billion based on purchasing power-adjusted GDP estimates, although this figure is uncertain.
MilitarySpend adds that revenue from Russian arms transfers – estimated to export up to $5 billion in ammunition to Russia between 2022 and 2025, according to South Korean intelligence – complements domestic weapons programs, as does cryptocurrency theft, which provides additional extra-budgetary funding for the development of weapons of mass destruction.
As Cointelegraph reported, North Korea-linked actors stole an estimated $6.75 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in 263 documented incidents between 2016 and early 2026, CertiK said, citing findings from independent on-chain researcher Taylor Monahan.
CertiK’s analysis concluded that North Korea has industrialized crypto theft into a key revenue mechanism for the state.
Magazine: Binance hackers tried to move billions before they could be frozen
