G7 declares war on North Korean crypto hackers: $2 billion stolen in a year
The criminal activity of hacker groups linked to North Korea has reached a fundamentally new level of threat to the global crypto industry. Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) at a recent summit in Évian adopted a tough statement on the need for coordinated counteraction against cryptocurrency thefts and cybercrimes originating from Pyongyang. The final document emphasizes that the illegal mining and theft of digital assets directly finance North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, posing a direct threat to international security.
The scale of the problem is staggering. According to my calculations and blockchain analytics data, in 2025, North Korean hackers stole a colossal $2.02 billion in cryptocurrencies. This is 51% more than the previous year. The total volume of assets they have stolen since tracking began has already exceeded $6.75 billion. This trend indicates not just an increase in the number of attacks, but a systemic transformation: North Korea has turned cybercrime into one of the key sources of income for its regime, bypassing international sanctions.
However, despite the loud statements, the G7 has not yet proposed specific mechanisms to combat the cryptocurrency threat vector. There is neither a unified registry of banned wallets nor mandatory verification procedures for mixers and decentralized exchanges, which are most often used to launder stolen funds. This creates a dangerous vacuum: while politicians discuss general principles, North Korean hackers continue to attack DeFi protocols and centralized platforms, using increasingly sophisticated methods of social engineering and phishing.
My expert conclusion: The cryptocurrency market should prepare for stricter regulation, especially regarding KYC/AML for the DeFi sector. If the G7 fails to develop unified technical standards for blocking suspicious transactions, we risk seeing a wave of asset "freezes" on major exchanges, which would undermine trust in the industry. The North Korean factor will become a catalyst for introducing mandatory verification of all anonymous wallets — it is only a matter of time.