If cryptocurrencies are self-regulating, aren’t the techniques used by these hackers actually the best and most effective way to play the game by its own rules? Calling this behavior “cheating” smells of sore-loserism.
Tangential recommendation, but anyone interested in North Korean hacking should check our the BBC World Service's Lazarus Heist podcast[0].<p>0. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvg9/episodes/downloads" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvg9/episodes/downloads</a>
> Hackers then send the ether to “mixers”—crypto platforms that co-mingle tokens from various users, obscuring their ownership. After that, the ether is swapped for bitcoin and then converted into tether, a token whose value is linked to the U.S. dollar.<p>Good timing for the US to lift sanctions on Tornado Cash [0].<p>Too many people think "lock them up" is the solution to crime, without considering that crime relies on certain types of infrastructure to remain in business. And that people who are "tough on crime" often have good reasons to keep operational the things that facilitate said crimes.<p>[0] <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0057" rel="nofollow">https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0057</a>
It's pretty incredible that a sizable percentage of North Korea's GDP derives from crypto theft. Actually about the same percentage as Spain was pulling from the Americas at the end of the colonial period.
"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"<p>The original point of Bitcoin was that someone else didn't keep custody of your money for you. You'd keep custody of it yourself, on your computer or a paper wallet.<p>Yet, there are tons of people who keep obscene amounts of Bitcoins on crypto exchanges or otherwise held by companies for them.<p>Why do people buy a cryptocurrency built on distrust of institutions that hold your money for you, and then give that cryptocurrency to an institution to hold it for them?<p>Did nobody learn anything when the former Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange imploded in 2013-2014?
Something tells me that WazirX's cold wallet wasn't actually cold - it was multisig but hot. The only thing that leaves the hardware running a cold wallet is a signed transaction that is limited in scope to the signed amount and recipient.
Kim Jong Un's keys: Kim Jong Un's coins.<p>Blockchain is a perfect, transparent trustless global ledger that can't be hacked, so it's a misnomer to characterise these transactions as "cheating", "crimes" or "theft".
The issue of cybersecurity in crypto is becoming more critical by the day. The scale at which nation-state actors are targeting the crypto world shows just how vulnerable many systems still are.
I thought this was one of crypto's primary use cases? A kind of "anything goes, anything you can get away with is allowed" sort of approach.
When i look around at all the positive innovations cryptocurrency has failed to deliver, it really does seem like they invented a currency exclusively useful for doing crimes.
Apparently the title of this story changed at The WSJ. That word "Cheat" seems wrong, while the old title makes more sense.<p><pre><code> "How Hackers Stole Billions in Crypto to Keep North Korea’s Regime Afloat"
</code></pre>
The archive link from the @Bostonian comment below has the original I guess: <a href="https://archive.is/1vkXG" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/1vkXG</a>
Extraordinary claims with no way to verify, typical for WSJ. Now the question is which group benefits from policies aimed to combat this? Follow the money to see who misleads you …