In a stunning twist, the U.S. government has found out that North Korea could be behind the Ronin hack
The U.S. Treasury Department alleges that North Korean hacking group Lazarus was involved in the theft of more than $600 million in cryptocurrency from the Ronin bridge linked to Axie Infinity.
Ronin was hacked for more than $600 million in crypto late last month
The Treasury Department added an Ethereum address to its sanctions list on Thursday. When it was checked, Wallet profiler Nansen labeled the sanctioned address as a “Ronin Bridge Exploiter.” It held 148,000 ETH at publication time. The wallet is tied to the Ronin exploit.
The US Department of the Treasury’s list of the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) now includes the Ethereum address that was involved in the historic security breach.
Cryptocurrency analytics firm Chainalysis tweeted that the address “was involved in the Ronin hack.” Ronin – a sidechain connected to the main Ethereum blockchain but allows the developers behind the Axie Infinity monetization game, Sky Mavis, to support faster and cheaper transactions – was hacked last month, lost 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC, worth $625 million at the time. It ranks among the largest mines in the history of cryptocurrency.
Today, OFAC added a new ETH address to Lazarus Group’s SDN entry as an identifier: 0x098B716B8Aaf21512996dC57EB0615e2383E2f96. https://t.co/9kFQ3jXBNK
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) April 14, 2022
Thursday’s action is the first time the Treasury Department’s sanctions office has blacklisted a crypto wallet allegedly held by Lazarus. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
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