By Yi Whan-woo
North Korea is believed to have earned up to $200 million last year from cryptocurrencies, according to a former senior U.S. security official.
Priscilla Moriuchi, who led the National Security Agency's East Asia and Pacific cyber threats office, also said the secretive state is estimated to have obtained at least 11,000 bitcoins through mining and hacking last year.
In an interview last week with Vox, a U.S. online news website, Moriuchi speculated that North Korea earns between $15 million and $200 million "by creating and selling cryptocurrencies and then turning them into hard cash." She did not elaborate on the basis of her estimation.
The revelation comes amid Washington's sanctions on Pyongyang in an attempt to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the latter's move to find other financial channels rather than conventional ones for transactions to fund its nuclear weapons development.
"There are not very many ID or security requirements, and many of these currencies are founded around -- or at least very much focused on -- security and anonymity for their users," said Moriuchi, who is currently the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a U.S.-headquartered real-time cyber threat intelligence company. "That kind of makes it a perfect platform for countries like North Korea, which are pretty isolated from the international financial system to begin with, to use this new form of commerce that's thus far existed pretty much outside of countries' regulatory control."
In a separate email correspondence with Radio Free Asia, Moriuchi estimated that North Korea mined or hacked at least 11,000 bitcoins last year, and their value would have been $210 million if Pyongyang cashed them in mid-December, when their price was at its peak.
North Korea is believed to have earned up to $200 million last year from cryptocurrencies, according to a former senior U.S. security official.
Priscilla Moriuchi, who led the National Security Agency's East Asia and Pacific cyber threats office, also said the secretive state is estimated to have obtained at least 11,000 bitcoins through mining and hacking last year.
In an interview last week with Vox, a U.S. online news website, Moriuchi speculated that North Korea earns between $15 million and $200 million "by creating and selling cryptocurrencies and then turning them into hard cash." She did not elaborate on the basis of her estimation.
The revelation comes amid Washington's sanctions on Pyongyang in an attempt to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the latter's move to find other financial channels rather than conventional ones for transactions to fund its nuclear weapons development.
"There are not very many ID or security requirements, and many of these currencies are founded around -- or at least very much focused on -- security and anonymity for their users," said Moriuchi, who is currently the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a U.S.-headquartered real-time cyber threat intelligence company. "That kind of makes it a perfect platform for countries like North Korea, which are pretty isolated from the international financial system to begin with, to use this new form of commerce that's thus far existed pretty much outside of countries' regulatory control."
In a separate email correspondence with Radio Free Asia, Moriuchi estimated that North Korea mined or hacked at least 11,000 bitcoins last year, and their value would have been $210 million if Pyongyang cashed them in mid-December, when their price was at its peak.
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