Could Bitcoin Be a Catalyst for Atomic Conflict?

## Could Bitcoin Be a Catalyst for Atomic Conflict?

In the past ten years, the infamous hacking organization North Korea’s Lazarus Group has stolen billions of dollars in digital currency, making the country one of the world’s largest Bitcoin owners. Surprisingly, a UN report indicates that almost half of North Korea’s nuclear program is financed by stolen crypto.

Lazarus Group has been in the news lately. According to Arkham Intelligence, the group possessed around $1.14 billion in Bitcoin as of March 17, 2025. They have also been converting stolen Ethereum to Bitcoin. Recent estimates put North Korea’s Bitcoin holdings at 13,518 BTC following the Bybit hack and subsequent money laundering. This places them ahead of nations such as Bhutan and El Salvador, and just behind the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.

On the same day, OKX exchange halted its DEX aggregator service, supposedly after staff discovered Lazarus Group attempting to penetrate the platform. Bloomberg reported on March 11 that the EU is looking into OKX’s Web3 services because of its involvement in the Bybit hack and related money laundering operations.

On March 10, 2025, the Socket research team revealed that Lazarus Group had infiltrated the npm ecosystem using six harmful packages. These packages employed BeaverTail malware to steal credentials, extract cryptocurrency data, compromise developer environments, and engage in other malicious activities. The packages were disguised as well-known, trusted libraries, and five more packages were uploaded to GitHub.

Elliptic reported earlier that on February 21, North Korean hackers stole $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency from the Bybit exchange, making it the largest cryptocurrency heist ever. Shiba Inu (SHIB) Cost Could Potentially Include One More Zero: Likely Situations

## Lazarus Group’s Offensive Operations

The Lazarus Collective, a hacking organization backed by the North Korean government, has been associated with digital offenses stretching as far back as 2009. Known as APT38, they aim at global network protection while utilizing pilfered assets to reinforce North Korea’s faltering economy because of punishments.

At first focusing on significant banks, they acquired reputation in 2017 with the WannaCry ransomware assault. From that point forward, they’ve moved concentration to digital currency, focusing on trades in the US and South Korea.

In 2017, they took crypto from Nicehash, Bithumb, and Youbit. In 2022, they scandalously took $615 million from Ronin Organization. In 2023, more than 17% of all taken digital currency was credited to Lazarus hacks, with WarziX and Bybit being late targets.

What separates Lazarus is their administration backing, in contrast to most cybercriminals. Their assaults have affected foundations and people in the US, China, Russia, South Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, and more.

Their bold violations go unpunished at home, recommending government support. Given North Korea’s state-controlled web, their exercises probably have government endorsement or sponsorship. Shiba Inu (SHIB) Cost Forecast for March 18

In contrast to Moscow, Pyongyang appears to be less worried about its global notoriety, permitting its programmers to act without any potential repercussions. These programmers supposedly get preparing at colleges in China and North Korea.

Specific digital intrusions, such as the WannaCry occurrence in 2017, are not mainly driven by monetary profit. Instead, their goal is to generate worry and disturb the arrangement of other countries. Nevertheless, following attacks on digital currency platforms have included considerable theft of capital, which is possibly utilized to cover North Korea’s financial shortages.

According to a record by NCC Group, this company is composed of several groups with differing ability sets. The cybercriminals act thoroughly, utilize a vast array of instruments, and concentrate on lasting stealth instead of fast success. Usually, the “Lazarus” group likes to utilize social control techniques and large phishing projects.

## Digital Currency and North Korea’s Nuclear Program

A United Nations record shows that roughly half of North Korea’s international exchange earnings originate from government-sponsored hacking assaults. These funds are allegedly utilized to fund the advancement of ballistic rockets. An anonymous resource in the record mentioned that 40% of the financing for weapons of mass damage advancement originates from cybercrime profits.

North Korea remains to perform ballistic rocket tests. In 2023, North Korea test-fired the “Hwasong-18” intercontinental ballistic rocket, which can lug numerous warheads and has a series of over 15,000 kilometers. 2022 was the year with one of the most rocket launches, with near 90 launches. The most current nuclear examination took place in 2017. It is approximated that North Korea has 50 to 100 nuclear warheads.

Last year, American reporter Annie Jacobsen released the book “Nuclear Battle: A Scenario.” Based upon meetings with retired officers acquainted with united state nuclear procedures, the book explains what would certainly occur if North Korea assaulted the USA with a nuclear weapon.

As per Jacobsen’s view, a atomic clash involving leading nations could play out across three 24-minute stages, possibly driving humankind to the verge of obliteration, succeeded by a long time of serious starvation and atomic winter. Bitcoin Will Be Exceedingly Detrimental to the US Economy: Peter Schiff

Considering this, averting such cases may include restricting protection and namelessness in DeFi and Web3 to more readily oversee reserves overseen by programmers. The eXch stage’s deferred reaction to Bybit’s solicitation to stop the trading out of taken reserves, permitting $90 million in digital currency to be moved, features the issue. This episode highlights how the crypto business encourages North Korea’s monetary aggregation. Specialists accept the Lazarus Gathering, with its exceptionally gifted programmers, will keep on taking advantage of digital currency to take huge aggregates. Tending to these difficulties requires novel arrangements that adjust protection and wrongdoing anticipation. As Aditya Das from Brave New Coin noted:

> “Preferably, we ought to arraign the genuine crooks instead of the applications they utilize. Nonetheless, North Korea’s capacity to conceal its tracks and deny hacking assaults is notable. On the off chance that arraignment isn’t as of now doable, anticipation is the subsequent best choice.”

Indicting Lazarus Gathering programmers is a challenging, almost outlandish undertaking. Throughout the long term, just a small bunch of people have been indicted, while the gathering likely utilizes more than 1,000 programmers and keeps on preparing new ones. This present circumstance is a long way from what Satoshi Nakamoto imagined while making Bitcoin.