Why North Korea Openly Steals Crypto: Inside the World's Most Brazen State-Sponsored Heist Operation
Overview North Korea is the only regime on earth that has turned cryptocurrency theft into an explicit national strategy. Since its first on-chain heist in 2017, the regime's infamous Lazarus Group has stolen an estimated $6.75 billion in digital assets — capping 2025 with a record-breaking single-event theft of $1.5 billion from Bybit. This is not opportunistic cybercrime. It is a systematic, state-directed campaign by a sanctions-isolated regime that has found in crypto's irreversibility and b


