cryptocurrency

North Korean hacking group Lazarus is suspected to be behind a recent breach of around 45 billion won (US$30.6 million) worth of cryptocurrency from South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, sources said Friday.

According to government and business sources, authorities plan to carry out an on-site investigation at the crypto exchange with a belief that Lazarus was behind the hacking.

Dunamu, which operates Upbit, said Thursday it confirmed the transfer of 44.5 billion won worth of Solana-affiliated assets to an unauthorized wallet address and plans to cover the full amount with assets the company owns.

The hacking group had been suspected of stealing 58 billion won worth of Ethereum from Upbit in 2019.

Authorities said the methods used in the latest incident resembled those of the 2019 theft.

“Instead of attacking the server, it is possible that hackers compromised administrators’ accounts or posed as administrators to make the transfer,” a government official said.

Experts note the hacking incident came while Pyongyang is seeking to raise money amid a shortage of foreign currency.

“It is the tactic of Lazarus to transfer crypto to wallets at other exchanges and attempt money laundering,” a security official said, noting such methods make it impossible to track the transaction.

Others said hackers may have intentionally chosen Thursday for their attack, as Naver Corp., South Korea’s top search engine operator, announced its decision on the previous day to acquire Dunamu as a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial through a share-swap deal.

“Hackers have a strong tendency toward self-display,” another security official said.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — The families of hundreds of U.S. citizens killed or injured by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, accuse cryptocurrency exchange Binance of supporting terrorism.

The families of 306 U.S. citizens harmed or killed during the attack filed a 272-page federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of North Dakota on Monday.

They say Malta-based Binance marketed its services to “terrorist organizations, narcotics traffickers and tax evaders” by emphasizing that Binance is “beyond the reach of any single country’s laws or regulations,” the lawsuit says, as reported by The New York Times.

The plaintiff families accused Binance of conducting transactions that totaled more than $1 billion on behalf of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Binance officials handled the transactions despite being warned of potential illegality by its compliance vendors and did not use common security checks, according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs also claim Binance willfully handled at least $50 million in transactions for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli civilians that killed 1,200 and kidnapped 254 others.

The lawsuit was filed a month after President Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao after he earlier pleaded guilty to money laundering charges, according to CNBC.

Zhao is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, along with Guangying Chen and Binance Holdings Ltd., who are accused of intentionally creating Binance to serve as a “criminal enterprise to facilitate money laundering on a global scale.”

The plaintiffs say the Binance officials knew Hamas and other designated foreign terrorist organizations regularly used the cryptoexchange and actively assisted them “at a time when Hamas, in particular, was publicly directing its donors to send funds” to its Binance cryptowallets.

Binance officials also disregarded filing required suspicious activity reports and manipulated how qualifying transactions were reported to prevent any scrutiny by U.S. banking regulators, the plaintiffs argue.

Binance “actively tried to shield its Hamas customers and their funds from scrutiny by U.S. regulators or law enforcement — a practice that continues to this day,” the plaintiff families say.

The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages in amounts to be determined at trial, treble damages due to alleged international terrorism-related activities, legal costs and other damages.

Binance officials told UPI they are aware of the federal complaint but cannot comment on active litigation.

The crypto exchange said it fully complies with internationally recognized sanctions laws and in 2025 had a direct exposure to illicit flows of less than 0.02% of platform volume, which it said is significantly below the industry average.

“We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars, expanded our global compliance-related workforce to over 1,280 specialists (22% of our entire workforce), and built real-time intelligence-sharing partnerships with law enforcement worldwide,” Binance said.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to working with regulators, law enforcement and our users to protect the integrity of the global digital-asset ecosystem.”

Published on
18/11/2025 – 12:10 GMT+1

The world’s first, largest, and most expensive cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has slid below $92,000 (€79,000) a coin, wiping more than 25% off its value since it hit record highs above $126,000 (€108,700) last month.

The dramatic decline is almost a textbook example of what it looks like to enter a bear market phase. That’s an industry term for when an asset falls so sharply it resembles the downward claw swipe of a bear.

Within the past 24 hours alone, Bitcoin traded as low as $89,471 (€77,210) or almost 30% below its late October peak, with the market recovering slightly in early trading on Tuesday.

“Bitcoin is extending losses, trading at around $90k, shedding around 2%, fuelled by concerns about overvaluations in the tech sector and broader risk-off sentiment that is causing a ripple effect across global markets,” explained Victoria Scholar, head of investment at the Interactive investor.

Despite a blistering rally into early October, all of Bitcoin’s gains this year have been erased and it is now trading below where it started in January.

“Bitcoin has now turned negative for 2025…fears of an AI bubble and concerns about the market’s heavy dependence on a handful of tech giants have caused investors to dial back their exposure to speculative assets such as Bitcoin,” Scholar explained.

The fall comes despite the presence of a crypto-friendly president in the White House, a less enforcement-minded chair at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a new stablecoin — crypto tied to currency — legislation on the books.

The risks of a decentralised currency

Blockchain currencies such as Bitcoin are built on a digital ledger rather than a physical system tied to a central bank or government, and this ledger records every transaction across a large network of computers. Thousands of these machines or nodes hold copies of the ledger and update it together.

Transactions are grouped into “blocks” — hence “blockchain” — and checked using cryptography before being added to the chain in a permanent, tamper-resistant sequence. This design makes the system transparent and very hard to alter, because changing any record would mean rewriting the entire chain on most of the participating computers.

All of this means that investors who are already on edge due to wider market volatility are quick to dump volatile assets like Bitcoin at the first sign of bad news in order to reduce their exposure.

“There’s a general sense of nervousness that has captured the market mood lately and Bitcoin appears to be in the firing line… riskier non-yielding assets like Bitcoin look less attractive in a higher interest rate environment,” Scholar explained.

Bitcoin’s defenders, such as billionaire investor Michael Saylor, have nonetheless welcomed the drop. Some claim it will flush out wealthy investors who do not understand or appreciate Bitcoin’s culture of long-term commitment and active engagement.

“Volatility is a gift to the faithful. It scares away the tourist, it scares away the lazy, it scares away the people that are already conventionally rich that have all the money,” Saylor said in a statement following the recent numbers.

Saylor and other die-hard Bitcoin believers say that those who are willing to study the market, stay invested through volatility, and participate in the daily ebb and flow of trading should be the ones benefitting the most from it — and not the casual spectators.

Saylor’s Strategy Inc., formerly MicroStrategy, bought 8,178 additional coins of Bitcoin between 10-16 November 2025 at an average price of around $102,171 or €88,000 each, spending roughly $835.6 million (€721.15mn) in total.

The Coinbase logo pictured April 2021 in Times Square in New York City. Coinbase runs the largest bitcoin exchange in the U.S. and was the first major cryptocurrency-focused company to go public. On Wednesday, Coinbase revealed its reincorporating in Texas, after exiting Delaware’s tax-haven following Elon Musk’s companies. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 12 (UPI) — Cryptocurrency firm Coinbase said its planning to leave Delaware and reincorporate its business in Texas.

The move to reincorporate in the Lone Star state was unanimously approved and recommended by the Coinbase board of directors.

A rough 78% majority of Coinbase shareholders approved the action.

“Delaware’s legal framework once provided companies with consistency. But no more,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, wrote in a Wall Street Journal Journal op-ed.

Coinbase now follows Elon Musk-owned Tesla in exiting Delaware to move its new base to Texas.

The crypto giant’s Texas legal counsel pointed to a state law signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in May that “strengthens” the state’s corporate legal framework, and supposedly “creates certainty and predictability” that served as the vehicle that helped create the business environment for Coinbase to make the move.

In February, Musk wrote on his X platform that he recommended Delaware-incorporated companies move “to another state as soon as possible.”

Texas’ Senate bill 29 aimed to make the state a “preferred jurisdiction for legal domestication, by creating an environment where ambitious, innovative companies can thrive,” Chris Converse, a partner at international law firm Foley and Lardner’s Dallas office who helped draft and push the law, told UPI in a statement.

It arrived after a Delaware court ruled against Tesla paying the ex-White House DOGE adviser a $56 billion pay package.

Grawal claimed Delaware’s Chancery Court provided “unpredictable outcomes” for the digital currency platform.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, like Musk, was a significant backer of U.S. President Donald Trump and his 2024 presidential campaign.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against eight individuals and two entities accused of laundering proceeds from North Korean cybercrime and information technology worker fraud schemes that help fund Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday that North Korea has stolen more than $3 billion over the past three years, using sophisticated techniques such as advanced malware and social engineering to breach financial systems and cryptocurrency platforms.

“North Korean state-sponsored hackers steal and launder money to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons program,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said in a statement. “By generating revenue for Pyongyang’s weapons development, these actors directly threaten U.S. and global security.”

Hurley added that the Treasury is “identifying and disrupting the facilitators and enablers behind these schemes to cut off the DPRK’s illicit revenue streams.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Among those sanctioned are Jang Kuk Chol and Ho Jong Son, North Korean bankers who allegedly helped manage illicit funds, including $5.3 million in cryptocurrency — some of it linked to ransomware that has previously targeted U.S. victims.

Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Co. and its president U Yong Su were also added to the list. The company allegedly operates IT-worker delegations from the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Dandong.

Ryujong Credit Bank, another target, was accused of laundering foreign-currency earnings and moving funds for sanctioned North Korean entities. Six additional individuals were designated for facilitating money transfers.

Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from engaging in transactions with them. Financial institutions dealing with the sanctioned parties may also face enforcement actions.

The move builds on earlier U.S. actions this year against North Korean cyber networks. In July, the State Department sanctioned Song Kum Hyok, a member of the Andariel hacking group, for operating remote IT-worker schemes that funneled wages back to Pyongyang.

The Justice Department also filed criminal charges in 16 states against participants in a campaign that placed North Korean IT workers in U.S. companies.

Tuesday’s OFAC statement cited an October report by the 11-country Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which described North Korea’s cybercrime apparatus as “a full-spectrum, national program operating at a sophistication approaching the cyber programs of China and Russia.”

The report added that “nearly all the DPRK’s malicious cyber activity, cybercrime, laundering and IT work is carried out under the supervision, direction and for the benefit of entities sanctioned by the United Nations for their role in the DPRK’s unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

The sanctions follow President Donald Trump‘s recent visit to South Korea, where a much-anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to materialize.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Tuesday that a summit could take place after joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled for March, according to opposition lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun of the People Power Party.