The FBI and private investigators have seized about $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean government-linked hackers from a video game company in March, according to Chainalysis, a US firm that said it worked with the FBI to claw back the stolen money.
It’s the latest example of a concerted effort from US law enforcement to recover some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that Pyongyang’s hackers have allegedly plundered from cryptocurrency firms in recent months — money that US officials worry is used to fund North Korean’s nuclear weapons programs.
The $30 million recovered is just a fraction of the equivalent of more than $600 million that the FBI said the North Korean hackers originally stole from Sky Mavis, a company with an office in Vietnam that makes a popular video game that allows users to earn digital money. But the seizure is still a breakthrough for law enforcement, and investigators are actively trying to recover some of the remaining loot, according to Erin Plante, Chainalysis’ senior director of investigations.
The $30 million recovered is just a fraction of the equivalent of more than $600 million that the FBI said the North Korean hackers originally stole from Sky Mavis, a company with an office in Vietnam that makes a popular video game that allows users to earn digital money.
The part they didn’t mention is that it cost something like $500-$1000 to get set up to play the game. Then players could mine game tokens by playing which they could sell. That worked fine until the price crashed. I guess that might be legal, but it is indistinguishable from a Ponzi scheme.
I don’t think its a problem of the blockchain, but of the security of wallets. BIG DIFFERENCE.
This does however show that blockchains are public records of ALL transactions, period. What is “anonymous” is who owns the wallet addresses. But anyone, anyone, can see every single Bitcoin transaction that ever happened.
Their wallets probably had a password without any numbers or special characters.
Actually, since the blockchain has every transaction logged anyone can find matching transaction amounts and come up with a short list of possibilities. And then (from last year’s colonial pipeline hack)
The FBI said in its request for a warrant Monday that its investigators had in their possession the private key for that address. Officials didn’t elaborate on how it obtained the information, and a spokesman didn’t offer further comment.
The major two cryptos are up. I think the crypto markets like Gensler’s ideas on SEC regs. Meaning those who invest or gamble take your pick in cryptos wont be as easily screwed by the fly by night crowd.
If some of the major crypto stuff is real making it more solid is going to be rewarded. Like any major corporation that behaves better than the shady characters.
