North Korea Behind $54M CoinEx Hack 🇰🇵

GM. This is Degen Scoop. It’s Thursday, here’s the scoop:

• North Korea Behind $54M CoinEx Hack 🇰🇵

• Stoner Cats Charged By The SEC, Sales Roar 💌

• Tornado Cash Dev Trial in March ⚖️

• Whale Moves 🐋

• Threads You CAN’T Miss 🧵

North Korea’s Lazarus Group Behind The $28M CoinEx Hack

Following yesterday’s lead story of the CoinEx hack, it has been found that it was Lazarus Group from North Korea who was behind the hack. It also seems the total value of the hack has doubled from the original size as wallets affected were drained. ZachXBT provided the information below noting how the hack was linked to North Korea.

You would think that if they were smart enough to pull off this hack, they would be smart enough to spin up a fresh wallet to cover their tracks. If there is one silver lining from attacks like these, it gives builders the chance to identify attack vectors when funds on-chain are smaller during a bear market. You can find a more comprehensive write-up on the situation below from CoinEx.

The SEC Charges Stoner Cats Causing An Uptick in Sales

For those that do not remember, Stoner Cats were an NFT project released in 2021 led by Mila Kunis to become a cartoon series. Yesterday, the collection was charged as an unregistered securities sale after raising some $8M from its release. Since the announcement by the SEC, the floor has nearly tripled from 0.019 ETH. Why? Crypto users love speculation as there is no definite payout for this as of yet.

In the charges, the SEC has mandated that the founders create a fair fund meant to make investors whole but it’s unknown how much will be distributed. Considering that the NFTs were sold for $800 at release, it’s not the worst gamble to make if you like betting. The company’s LLC has agreed to pay a $1M fine and destroy any NFTs it owns.

Tornado Cash Dev, Alexey Pertsev, Receives March Trial Date

Tornado Cash is arguably one of the most polarizing protocols to have been created on-chain. Last year, its developer Pertsev had been detained in the Netherlands for nine months without any progress but a trial date has now been set. Considering the Tornado Cash founders were arrested at the tail of last month, it’s not surprising to see all facets of this case progress similarly.

In March, Pertsev will stand trial against the allegations of having helped North Korea launder money anonymously. If there is any sort of precedent from the Uniswap case, Pertsev may have a chance of not being made an example of. Knowing that protocols are effectively permissionless code, it will be interesting to watch how an international court treats actions outside of one’s control.

Notable NFT Sales in the Last 24 Hours:

Notable Threads You May Have Missed:

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Conclusion

Touch grass, hit the gym, and don’t forget about what’s really important outside of magical internet coins.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter does not constitute financial advice. This is strictly educational and should not be used to make any financial decisions. Be responsible and do proper due diligence before aping.