DigitalMoneyBox Signal Desk
DigitalMoneyBox Crypto market intelligence
Browse sections
Cryptocurrency Bitcoin Ethereum Briefings Blockchain Security Mining Altcoin Research NFT
Timeline Hourly market signal stream Sources Publisher health and coverage Topics Curated crypto topic hubs Entities Assets, firms, people, regulators Media Kit Audience and placement options Search Advanced archive filters
Altcoin Protos

North Korea launders Binance funds with Elon Musk memecoin, report

North Korea-linked hackers who stole $6.4 billion from the world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance are reportedly laundering the stolen funds using TRON, Solana, and NEAR-based memecoins. Crypto security analysts at Elli...

78 /100
Market signal

Watchlist

Published in the last two hours. Multiple named entities are involved.

North Korea launders Binance funds with Elon Musk memecoin, report

North Korea-linked hackers who stole $6.4 billion from the world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance are reportedly laundering the stolen funds using TRON, Solana, and NEAR-based memecoins.

Crypto security analysts at Elliptic claim to have linked around $430,000 worth of NEAR to the creation of six memecoins themed around various animals, including ducks and chimpanzees.

One of these tokens promotes Elon Musk as the future 2028 president. 

Elliptic mapped the North Korea-linked memecoin laundering process.

Read more: How the Binance hack happened on-chain on Ethereum

Once sold, the profit generated by the tokens is roughly equivalent to the amount of money that went in.

Elliptic believes that the tokens were used for money laundering. This is based on the fact that nobody else was trading them, that they were paid for with the proceeds from a previous linked token launch, and that they were only traded for a short amount of time before never being used again. 

It also claims the memecoins attract little attention, are cheap to produce at only $90 per launch, and can slow down investigators’ tracing efforts by introducing more steps to the stolen funds’ journey. 

Laundering group has over $43M worth of NEAR tokens

Funding for the memecoins came from hacking group TraderTraitor’s crypto wallet, which contained around $43.7 million worth of NEAR. 

Stolen funds were also traced to one token created on the TRON blockchain, and another on Solana.

Elliptic didn’t say what tool was used to create the tokens, nor did it name the decentralised exchange where the funds were sent. It only notes that these entities “did nothing wrong; the launderers simply used them as any other user could.”

Read more: Binance faces second probe over Iran-linked billions

It’s not TraderTraitor’s first memecoin rodeo

Elliptic spotted TraderTraitor carrying out this same memecoin laundering method in the aftermath of last year’s $1.5 billion Bybit hack. 

In this case, it used TRON-based memecoins and reportedly moved at least $24 million.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post North Korea launders Binance funds with Elon Musk memecoin, report appeared first on Protos.

Why this matters

Binance is showing up inside the Security Incidents theme, so this story is worth tracking for follow-through rather than treating it as a one-off headline.

Original source

Read on Protos

Related market context