- Kim Yo Jong rejected the FBI’s claim that North Korea took more than $6B from Binance.
- She called US accusations against North Korea a “grave political provocation.”
- Kim questions who stands to benefit from the recovered Binance hack funds.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on Tuesday rejected a US finding that Pyongyang stole more than $6 billion from Binance, and suggested Washington itself stands to benefit from any recovered funds.
The statement, published by state news agency KCNA, answers an FBI announcement on Saturday that tied the theft to TraderTraitor, a hacking group previously linked to other crypto heists.
What Pyongyang Said
- Kim called the accusation “a grave political provocation” and said Washington was trying to brand the country a “cyber criminal state.”
- She described the US case as “absurd rhetoric and nothing new.”
- She said that the current US administration pledged to seize stolen crypto and keep it as a strategic reserve, adding that whoever ends up holding the recovered funds “may get a clue about who is behind the hacking incident.”
- She said North Korea is “closely monitoring” US actions and has “issues to reconsider,” without elaborating.
Why the Statement Stands Out
An official at South Korea’s unification ministry said it was Kim’s first statement on hacking accusations against the North. Past cases usually drew replies from the foreign ministry, so the official read the choice of speaker as a sign of how seriously Pyongyang takes the fallout.
The ministry cannot predict how the case will affect a possible summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, and North Korea has not answered Trump’s repeated offers to resume talks.
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What Investigators Found
- TRM Labs traced about $6.36 billion leaving Binance wallets on ten blockchains on Oct. 29 and attributed the attack to TraderTraitor with high confidence. Chainalysis put the loss at $6.4 billion and also pointed to the group. Neither names an individual.
- Chainalysis estimates 89% of crypto hack losses in 2026 trace to North Korea, up from 15% in 2021. Elliptic puts North Korea’s haul this year at $7.6 billion, a record.
- South Korea’s central bank estimated the North’s 2025 economy at about $35.09 billion, so the Binance haul equals roughly a sixth of it.
Earlier Cases
In 2018, the US Justice Department charged a North Korean programmer, Park Jin Hyok, over the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2016 theft of $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank and the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, which hit more than 300,000 computers. Authorities have not arrested him, and he is believed to be in North Korea. TRM links the Binance attack to the group behind the $1.5 billion Bybit theft in February 2025.
North Korea has repeatedly denied involvement in crypto theft.
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Related: Binance Completes New Proof of Reserves as Hack Recovery Reaches 95%
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