North Korea continues to openly steal huge amounts of cryptocurrency, with sanctions and the need for nuclear weapons being the core driving forces.

CoinFeed reported on April 12th, citing CoinDesk, that North Korea's long-term, open, large-scale cryptocurrency theft has become a core means for circumventing international sanctions and acquiring hard currency. With traditional financial channels blocked by sanctions, North Korea, relying on state-backed hacking organizations, continuously launches phishing attacks, infiltrations, and contract vulnerability exploits against exchanges and DeFi protocols. The stolen funds are primarily used for ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development. On-chain data shows that in recent years, North Korean hackers have stolen billions of dollars annually, exhibiting characteristics of "decreasing frequency but increasing individual transaction amounts," and their money laundering networks are sophisticated and difficult to trace across borders. The article argues that as long as sanctions and the need for weapons development remain unchanged, North Korea's cryptocurrency theft will continue.