So, what's the most likely outcome here? Maybe Circle/Tether/etc freeze some or most of it, but say the hacker gets a billion dollars. Are they able to launder it thoroughly enough that they can eventually turn it into fiat and live like a king?
The hackers managed to swap 700 million USD of the stable coins that were frozen beforehand, supposedly. And that doesn't account for the non-stable coin crypto they stole. I think we are looking at 2.5 to 3.5 billion here, that also aligns with what CZ is hinting at (more than a billion).
Yeah, some criminal enterprise or state probably just made billions of dollars and will now use it against us for a long time. Crypto is practically designed for money laundering, particularly prediction markets.
Crypto is a hard lesson for early adopters who believed that humanity will get actual benefit when in reality it was completely hijacked by bad actors while people got relative nothing or worse. What an incredible disappointment of a project.
Crypto is also a hard lesson for those who thought it could liberate if only everyone was using it: the amount of storage needed for ever-increasing record-keeping made it completely unrealistic to use individually, forcing you into the centralisation that they advertised you could escape from.
> the amount of storage needed for ever-increasing record-keeping made it completely unrealistic to use individually
That's not necessarily true as you can introduce extra layers to handle the storage. Why store A, B, C, D sending each other cents when you can aggregate it to once a week balance sheet changes. All of these are actually solvable tech issues even in 2012 computers.
The main failure of crypto is that it claimed to design away human corruption which in theory made a lot of sense but in practice it did the opposite - it accelerated human corruption without bad actors having to even break the rules. Just how Hitler rose to power through gaming the democratic processes crypto was gamed without anyone having to break 51% proof of work to rewrite the ledger.
The idea of running everything without oversight of humans and institutions is just fundamentally unsustainable - who are we running this system for if not for us, the people?
NK is literally the primary victor of Crypto as an ecosystem. They've never had an easier time funding their economy.
The previous strategy North Korea used before Crypto was to make the best quality counterfeit US dollars ever made. That got somewhat countered. So North Korea was actually going to be in a bad place funding wise. Thank goodness everyone gave them trivial access to free money through crypto!
Thanks to Crypto and the Ukraine war, North Korea is doing really well for itself. Which, to be clear, means nuclear tipped ICBMs
Russia uses crypto for sanctions evasion and money laundering. They also indirectly profit of it from their domestic ransomware operators using crypto. But Russia does not gather state funds through hacking. That is pretty much uniquely a North Korean thing.
Seriously, they have professionalized attacks on crypto infra to a degree that whenever you hear about a massive heist, you can be pretty sure it's North Korea.
Curious if this finally pops tether. I kinda doubt it, but to my very mild research on the subject I feel like binance was a big part of the equation. Of course so long as the market exists it'll need a stable, and it's got the inertia, so maybe it just won't matter.
why would it pop tether? if anything, it makes tether more profitable, as they can collect the yield on the treasuries and not have to return the principal dollars which are frozen.
think of it this way - if someone steals your iphone, and you lock it, does apple pop? No, apple sells you another one. locked devices are good for apple because it causes more demand.
It's really hard to be an obvious fraud when you've been publishing attestations for years and now you have a "full independent audit" from KPMG for FY 2025, just like Circle/USDC.
Read up on the origins of tether, the people who founded it, deltic bank, banned for fraud in New York. In the beginning the reserves were a lie. I have no doubt they have some reserves now, but do they have $182 billiom USD, really?
CZ from Binance was also done for… fraud but miraculously pardoned by Donald Trump (I wonder why?!) and somehow still has enormous influence and inside knowledge in spite being banned from managing Binance. He talks as if he runs the company. Hmmm.
> I have no doubt they have some reserves now, but do they have $182 billiom USD, really?
This is literally what the attestations and audits are for. BDO and KPMG both have issued opinions saying yes, they do have all the money they claim to have.
This sort of audit is pay to play and the customer has a heavy influence. I'm sorry but given they were caught lying before I don't trust the Tether people. But if you trust them and these auditors, great, you can hold Tether and be sanguine that KPMG will protect you.
Just like that EY [1], that Deloitte [2], and that PwC [3]. Yes, all of these major auditors with hundreds of thousands of employees each and probably-similar-in-magnitude clients have been sanctioned by the FRC. It's great that there is a competent regulator that can enforce regulations against all of the top accounting networks. For Tether, there are two independent auditors: BDO and KPMG. If two large auditors who take their reputation seriously both come to the conclusion that Tether has the money (and has had the money), you are just burying your head in the sand thinking everyone is committing fraud.
Yes all these auditing companies accept money to say that another company is doing just fine and ticks all the boxes and has assets etc. They all often lie, in small ways and large. I'm not sure why you think proving all are untrustworthy means some are trustworthy?
We'll see whether Tether has the assets they claim when the next crypto winter comes. Till then I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Hardly anyone actually uses crypto anymore, silly ideas like NFT, rewiring the financial system, asset tracking and apps on the blockchain have died, and all that is left are the last bag-holders, fraud and extra-legal financial transactions.
Frozen funds remain frozen, until they are unfrozen.
So mechanically Tether pockets the difference, unless they unfreeze.
But as a matter of accounting, because of the unfreeze capability, the liabilities of the frozen Tether stay on the books. So they can't just spend the money. It also makes it hard for Tether to compensate the victims from the frozen funds.
The alternative would be to let Tether burn funds, but that is highly problematic for well intentioned users. Because a freeze can be challenged in court and reversed. A burn cannot.
> Yeah totally not israeli hackers... it has to be scary kim.
The Israelis don't have any problem acquiring hard currency. North Korea does, and has an established MO of stealing crypto and running online moneymaking scams like ransomware.
They were talking about the money sources, not the list of grivences by political source in order of severity. The latter, however much you'd like to make the conversation be about it, does not change how each actually gets its money.
I know saying this is sinister, but it would be so fucking funny if it's an agent swarm gone out of control. Just like the hugging face incident happened because the agents kind of hallucinated a "checker" program, this hack could also be in the service of some hairbrained scheme the agent swarm dreamed up.
Well, looking at the way NK is demonized, you would think it was on a genocidal rampage, invading neighboring countries, and eliminating heads of sovereign states in pursuit of its Greater NK project.
I would be less snarky if the faux concern didn’t just last as long as the media tells you to. Most recently, there was a period where Myanmar and the Uyghurs were in vogue, but not anymore. NK is more evergreen it seems.
Setting aside the genocide, it is particularly funny at a time when Western governments are oppressing their own by crushing dissent on Israel, but I don’t see the same outrage there.
You don’t see the same outrage around Israel? Have you... looked? It’s all over.
I don’t understand what you mean about faux concern only lasting as long as the media says. North Korea is, as you say, evergreen. And I’m pretty sure it’s based on how awful that government is, not on “the media” telling us to hate them.
I see the outrage, but I don’t see it at the level of NK, at least not in Western media or governments.
I meant the faux concern over NK is evergreen unlike some other causes such as the ones I mentioned.
As soon as (if ever) NK joins the fold of Western-aligned liberal states, the media machine will spin up and it will cease to be maligned, and you will move on to the next bogeyman.
We must be looking at different things, because right now I see about a thousand times more criticism leveled at Israel than at North Korea. (Making no statement here about who deserves it.)
If NK ever were to join the fold of western-aligned liberal states, it will probably be accompanied by no longer behind quite such utter bastards to their people and a cessation of maligning would be entirely justified.
I just don’t get it. Of all the things to complain about propaganda in the world, why North Korea? This is one where they get it right.
> because right now I see about a thousand times more criticism leveled at Israel than at North Korea
Is the criticism of Israel from the people, or from Western govs and media outlets (i.e., the establishment, the centers of actual power)? And isn’t the outrage logical given the nature of the atrocities being committed by Israel right now? And pray tell: which Western countries are sanctioning Israel?
On the other hand, NK is vilified by the Western establishment, i.e. by the holders of power, but on a more background level. It isn’t the topic du jour right now, but NK is ever present as a big bad evil. Propaganda helps maintain this image in the West, even when NK isn’t present in the news cycle. And it is sanctioned to hell and back.
And even if it is “right”, it does not mean that it is completely right, nor does it mean that the propaganda isn’t doing its job effectively even if you don’t realize it.
Anyhow, I think this thread is deep enough, so I will stop here.
Whatever NK does seems relatively tame in today's world. On the global stage it's generally thought of as a larger crime to oppress the peoples of other's countries (either the ukraine or iran conflict should fit your priors).
I’m not sure what’s supposed to be tame about operating one of the most oppressive societies in the world and keeping their people in poverty while building a nuclear arsenal.
It’s definitely true that crimes against other countries are more frowned upon than crimes against one’s own people. Which doesn’t seem right to me at all. People are people and victims are victims whether it’s their own government or someone else’s. Hence why I’m confused about the snark. This seems like an instance where ugly norms are being broken for a good reason and it’s being treated like hypocrisy.
Agree crimes against your own people should probably be the more major consideration. In terms of who is the biggest baddie there are also elements of actively bombing/starving vs the more passive methods of NK control.
TBH I think I (and maybe others) just get triggered when the bogey man is invoked each time there's a crypto story.
It’s like reading an article about a Russian dissident politician dying from falling out of a window and then getting outraged when someone suggests he may have been murdered by someone in power.
This whole thread is complete crazypants. Gosh, how dare you unfairly malign North Korea just because they’re completely awful and have a long track record of doing exactly the kind of thing being discussed.
"Passive method of control" is a remarkable euphemism for being packed off to the gulag for crimes like being related to someone who fled to South Korea.
