While the cryptocurrency space provides a wealth of transformative potential for financial systems — and serves as an exciting market for speculative investments, there’s always a darker side to the story.
Although such use cases might be gradually phasing out, cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin (BTC) in particular, have a history of being used for illegal purposes. To use the most straightforward example, the BTC confiscated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from dark-web marketplace Silk Road is now worth billions of dollars.
These illegal activities extend beyond common criminality — a lot of the time, they involve state actors whose clandestine activities are quite far-reaching. Efforts like these can include hacking for the purpose of theft, or attempts to avoid international sanctions.
However, there is one thing that addresses linked to such groups and purposes rarely do — and that’s trade crypto. Last week, however, a wallet associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) infamous Lazarus Group did just that — and ended up accruing significant losses within a matter of days.
The first transaction was made on December 18, and saw the deposit of 476,489 USD Coin (USDC). On the same day, the account went long on Ethereum (ETH) at a price of $3,791
That proved to be quite a costly mistake —as on December 18, ETH entered into a downward motion that would last until December 20. Just two days after the trade was opened, it was closed — and with ETH prices having receded to $3,251, the original investment, which was worth $2,808,823, was now worth $2,408,869.
In total, this short-term trade brought about a $399,954 loss for the address in question. Finally, a USDC withdrawal worth $18,197 was made on December 21.
Readers should note that the losses could be greater than $399,954 — while the last withdrawal doesn’t necessarily mean that the wallet is completely cleaned out, early liquidation penalties and transaction/platform fees could have taken an additional bite out of its purchasing power.