{
  "id": 19203250,
  "title": "Binance Hack Launderers Mint Elon Musk and Animal Meme Coins to Move Stolen Crypto",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/09/binance-hack-launderers-mint-elon-musk-and-animal-meme-coins-to-move",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-11-09T19:36:02.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Decrypt",
    "slug": "decrypt",
    "url": "https://decrypt.co/382873/binance-hack-elon-musk-animal-meme-coins-launder-stolen-crypto"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Hackers likely working on behalf of North Korea are using meme coins to launder $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance. The heist, which Futurism reports is the largest in crypto history, occurred after months of planning and saw the thieves abscond with the funds in just 20 minutes.\n\nAccording to Elliptic, the launderers are minting worthless, single-use tokens featuring Elon Musk and cartoon animal logos to move the stolen assets. These coins are used as \"containers\" within liquidity pools to disguise the movement of funds. Elliptic notes that this method is cost-effective because meme coins are cheap to create and allow creators to set prices for tokens that nobody else intends to buy.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Futurism",
        "title": "North Korea Is Allegedly Using Elon Musk and Cartoon-Themed Meme Coins to Launder the Billions in Crypto It Stole From Binance",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/09/north-korea-is-allegedly-using-elon-musk-and-cartoon-themed-meme",
        "published": "2026-11-09T18:24:45.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}