North Korea Is Allegedly Using Elon Musk and Cartoon-Themed Meme Coins to Launder the Billions in Crypto It Stole From Binance

Last month, a group of hackers, believed to be acting on behalf of North Korea, successfully stole $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. Cryptocurrency research firm Elliptic has now revealed that Pyongyang is allegedly using meme coins to launder the stolen funds.

Meme coins are digital assets based on internet memes or viral trends, and are often worthless except for their novelty value. Elliptic found that North Korea is minting these coins and using them to move the stolen funds around various liquidity pools. These meme coins are designed to be single-use and fundamentally worthless, making them ideal for disguising the movement of stolen assets.

Elliptic identified at least six meme coins connected to this scheme, all created shortly after the Binance heist. It's estimated that the hackers have laundered around $430,000 of the stolen funds using this method. One of the meme coins even features an image of billionaire Elon Musk under the caption "Elon 2028 President", despite there being no evidence that Musk is involved in this alleged scheme.

North Korea's use of these meme coins for money laundering isn't a new tactic. Last year, after the same group of hackers stole $1.5 billion from Bybit, they used meme coins to move at least $24 million from the stolen funds.