North Korea Has Secured 1.7 Trillion Won Worth of Bitcoin, Becoming the World's Third-Largest Bitcoin Holder

Bitcoin held by the U.S. is confiscated from the dark web 'Silk Road', which was a criminal den. Last year, the U.K. arrested Chinese Wen Jihen

North Korea has quietly amassed a vast fortune in bitcoin, becoming the world's third-largest bitcoin holder. According to blockchain analyst Arkham Intelligence on Monday, North Korean hacker group Lazarus is known to hold 13,562 Bitcoin.

Last January, North Korea laundered 146 billion yen (about $1.46 billion) worth of Ethereum, which was seized from Bybit, the world's second-largest virtual asset exchange by transaction value, through Tornado Cash. Since then, it has converted it into bitcoin and held it.

The amount held by North Korea is the third largest in the world after the U.S. (198,109) and the U.K. (61,245) by country. Following North Korea, Bhutan has 10,635 and El Salvador has 6,117.

North Korea's bi-bit hacking is the largest ever among single hacks. According to Chainalysis, it is more than half of the total virtual asset hacking amount of $2.2 billion that occurred last year.

Bitcoin held by the U.S. is confiscated from the dark web 'Silk Road', which was a criminal den. Last year, the U.K. arrested Chinese Wen Jihen, who was laundering money using virtual assets in London, and seized more than 60,000 Bitcoin.

On the other hand, North Korea acquired bitcoin through hacking, and Bhutan started the bitcoin mining industry in 2017 and has held bitcoin. El Salvador is buying Bitcoin nationally.

The hacking incident took place by North Korean hackers accessing the developer's computer of the security solution "Safe" and manipulating the screen of the safe program used for bi-bit transactions.

The market believes that North Korea will soon sell Bitcoin as the reason for acquiring virtual assets is to fund the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs. Virtual asset investors are concerned about the market impact as the scale reaches 1.7 trillion won.

However, some analysts say that there will be no significant impact given the daily trading volume of Bitcoin around the world.

According to CoinMarketCap, the trading volume of Bitcoin over the previous 24 hours was $23.2 billion as of 2 p.m. that day. North Korea's holdings amount to around $1.1 billion.

Kim Min-seung, head of the Covit Research Center, said, "It is clear that North Korea will cash in Bitcoin, but there was no crash when 53,679 seized by the German government came to the market last year."