Suspected North Korean hackers used memecoins to help launder stolen funds after a record $6.3 billion (£4.7bn) theft from Binance late last month, researchers said.
The hackers created at least six new tokens on the NEAR blockchain within days of the theft, through which they laundered about $430,000 of the stolen funds, in an effort to make the funds harder to trace, crypto analysts Elliptic said.
The tokens, identified as FUK, OLCCL, MEILI, MMLI, DABI and SINU, were accompanied by typical memecoin imagery such as a monkey wearing a pink bow or an image of Elon Musk and a banner reading “Elon 2028 President”.
Image credit: Unsplash
Fake memecoins
The tokens emulated the typical short lifespan of a memecoin in order to carry out the thieves’ objectives, according to Elliptic.
“A wallet whose history shows trades in a new meme coin looks like a speculator rather than a launderer, unless someone checks where its money came from,” said Elliptic founder and chief scientist Tom Robinson in a blog post.
Memecoins were also used to launder some of the funds stolen from crypto exchange Bybit in February of last year, an attack also attributed to North Korea.
Frozen funds
About $3.13bn of the stolen funds remain in attacker-held wallets directly linked to the theft, mainly denominated in Bitcoin and Ether, which can’t be frozen by the issuers and can be laundered at the thieves’ leisure, Elliptic said.
About $2.85bn of the stolen funds were either frozen or intercepted, with much of these monies being denominated in stablecoins such as Tether and Circle, which can be frozen by the issuer.
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