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North Korean hacking groups issued and used their own meme coins on TRON, NEAR and Solana to launder funds stolen in the Binance hack.
Elliptic said about 117,000 NEAR ($430,000) was laundered through the method, and much of the recovered money was swapped into stablecoins or moved to other blockchains.
Elliptic said low-cost meme coins could be abused repeatedly and stressed that crypto firms should not treat funds flowing in from liquidity pools as legitimate.
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North Korean hacking groups are issuing their own meme coins to launder cryptocurrency stolen in the Binance hack, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said. The tactic makes the money trail harder to follow by creating near-worthless tokens and trading them on decentralized exchanges, according to the firm.
Elliptic said on Nov. 9 that the groups recently issued their own meme coins on the TRON and NEAR blockchains to launder funds taken in the $6.4 billion Binance hack. Similar laundering activity was also identified on Solana.
The firm said the hackers minted at least six meme coins on the NEAR blockchain between Nov. 5 and Nov. 7. The tokens were FUK, OLCCL, MEILI, MMLI, DABI and SINU. Issuance cost only about $90 per token.
The laundering method is relatively simple. The hackers first issue a new token and create a liquidity pool on a decentralized exchange using a cryptocurrency with real value, such as NEAR. They then use a wallet holding stolen funds to buy the token, before selling it from another wallet to recover NEAR.
That process leaves no direct transfer record between the wallet holding the stolen funds and the wallet that ultimately receives the money. To outside observers, the activity can look like ordinary meme-coin trading. Tracing the flow of funds therefore requires additional analysis.
Elliptic estimates about 117,000 NEAR was laundered using the method, worth about $430,000. After meme coins were bought from wallets that had received stolen funds, separate wallets sold them. Much of the recovered money was then swapped into stablecoins or moved to other blockchains.
The meme coins also showed a distinct pattern. Trading was concentrated immediately after issuance and then stopped. None of the six tokens has recorded any trading since Nov. 8. Some liquidity was also withdrawn by the issuer. Elliptic said it concluded the tokens were created for laundering because most transactions took place between wallets linked to the hacking groups.
This is not the first time North Korean hackers have used the tactic. Elliptic said it found a similar case in last year’s Bybit hack, when at least $24 million in stolen funds was laundered through self-issued tokens. In the Binance case, a similar token was found on TRON on Nov. 2, and fund transfers using thinly traded tokens were detected on Solana the next day.
“This technique does not completely hide funds. It slows investigators down,” Elliptic said. “Because all transaction records remain on the blockchain, tracing the flow of funds is still possible.”
The firm added that the low cost of issuing new tokens means hacking groups can repeatedly create and discard them. Crypto firms should not treat funds entering from liquidity pools as legitimate solely because of their source.
Separately, Elliptic said about 11.8 million NEAR, worth $43.7 million, stolen in the Binance hack has yet to move.
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