Popular podcaster Joe Rogan just gets Bitcoin (BTC). In his most recent podcast with Khalil Rountree, a renowned mixed martial (MMA) fighter, Rogan explained that BTC is something that the “government didn’t see coming.” “I think of Bitcoin the same way I think of the early internet. They [the government] didn’t see it coming and now it’s a viable form of currency–you can actually buy things with it.” Rogan explained that there will be a time when “some government” will implement a “centralized currency that they can control,” with the intention to “limit what you spend your money on.” Bitcoin …

When North Korea announced a crypto conference back in 2018, Canadian journalist Ethan Lou jumped at the opportunity to see what the country’s crypto scene looked like. He encountered many surprises, including being introduced as a presenter to a North Korean audience. According to Lou, he went there with eight other unsuspecting participants who simply wanted to attend the crypto conference. However, when the plane landed and the conference started, they realized that they were being announced to the audience as foreign experts who flew all the way to North Korea to teach them about crypto. While Lou did not …

A United States district court has charged two European citizens in connection to a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference in North Korea which violated U.S. sanctions back in 2019. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the court documents allege that Alejandro Cao De Benos, a citizen of Spain, and Christopher Emms, a citizen of the United Kingdom, conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on North Korea when they jointly planned and organized the 2019 Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference. The pair allegedly worked with former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith to provide instruction on how the DPRK could use blockchain and cryptocurrency …

The United States Treasury Department has added three Ethereum wallet addresses to sanctions allegedly linked to the hacker group responsible for the theft of more than $600 million in crypto from nonfungible token game Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain. In a Friday update, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, listed three Ethereum addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals restrictions for North Korea’s Lazarus Group. U.S. authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have targeted the group over its alleged role in taking more than 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million …

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have issued an alert on North Korean state-sponsored cyber threats that target blockchain companies in response to the Ronin Bridge hack last month. The alert was issued on Monday in conjunction with the FBI and the Treasury Department, which had warnings and mitigation suggestions for blockchain and crypto firms to ensure their own operations remain safe from hackers. With the @FBI, and @USTreasury, we released a new cybersecurity advisory on North Korean state-sponsored activity targeting blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry. Read the technical guidance and mitigation …

The decentralized finance (DeFi) world saw another week of increased on-chain and developer activity while token prices entered the second week of the bear market, with many of the tokens bleeding in double digits over the past week. MetaMask expanded its institutional offering by partnering with four institutional custodians, while Polygon has pledged to go carbon neutral. We will also look at how users can bridge different tokens to the Polygon network and look into Reputation DAO, a project that collateralizes users’ private information for DeFi loans. MetaMask expands institutional offering by integrating new crypto custodians DeFi wallet and browser …

Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum (ETH) developer has been sentenced to 63 months in prison and will pay a fine of $100,000 for attending a conference and assisting North Korea use blockchain technology in contravention of economic sanctions imposed by the United States. On Tuesday, April 12, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York handed down the decision. Judge Castel stated that “what you see here is intentionality, a deliberate, willful intent to violate the sanctions' regime,” adding that the crime was made worse because Griffith had a “desire to educate people on how to …

North Korean crypto hackers siphoned off nearly $400 million in crypto through cyber attacks in 2021 according to new data from Chainalysis. The type of crypto stolen has also seen a sea change according to the Jan. 13 report from the blockchain analytics firm. In 2017, BTC accounted for nearly all the crypto stolen by the DPRK, but it now accounts for just one fifth: “In 2021, only 20% of the stolen funds were Bitcoin, whereas 22% were either ERC-20 tokens or altcoins. And for the first time ever, Ether accounted for a majority of the funds stolen at 58%.” …

The use of cryptocurrencies to evade international sanctions from various international governmental organizations like the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, among others, has been a concern for regulators ever since the creation of cryptocurrencies. The rapidly increasing adoption of digital currencies in the last two years makes this discussion more important than ever, especially with the advent of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) like the digital yuan. In an interview on Nov.17, United States Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said that the efficacy of U.S. sanctions would not be undermined by central bank …

Ethereum (ETH) developer Virgil Griffith has pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he conspired with North Korea to violate United States sanctions law. On Monday, Griffith pleaded guilty in New York to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which forbids U.S. citizens from exporting technology and intellectual property to communist countries. As part of the plea deal, Griffith could face up to six-and-a-half years in prison. Formal sentencing is expected to commence in January 2022. Virgil, who served as senior researcher for the Ethereum Foundation, was arrested in November 2019 after attending a conference in the …

Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith has violated the terms of his bail and has been taken into custody after he allegedly accessed his cryptocurrency account. The remand order came from United States District Judge P. Kevin Castel after Griffith reportedly sought to access Ether (ETH) assets held by Coinbase in May. The Ethereum Foundation researcher will likely spend the next two months behind bars. He is scheduled to be tried on Sept. 21 on charges of conspiracy to violate sanctions with North Korea and faces up to 20 years in prison. According to Law360, Judge Castel’s main concern was flight risk …

On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced charges against three North Korean hacker. Making the announcement, Assistant Attorney General John Demers condemned the North Korean program, the most famous branch of which is Lazarus Group. Demers said: "North Korea’s operatives, using keyboards rather than guns, stealing digital wallets of cryptocurrency instead of sacks of cash, are the world’s leading bank robbers." With a country largely sequestered from the international economy, North Korea's hacking program has been a critical source of revenue. Many have linked hacking income from sources like the WannaCry malware and crypto exchange Coincheck with the …