Kim Jong Un memes flood X after $6.3B Binance breach tied to North Korea

On October 29, Binance suffered a $6.36 billion hack that blockchain researchers quickly attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group and its Tradertraitor unit. The attackers moved 18,270 BTC plus large amounts of ETH, XRP and stablecoins across nearly a dozen chains in roughly 20 minutes.

X was soon filled with memes showing a grinning Kim Jong Un celebrating a supposed multi-billion windfall for his sanctioned economy. Users joked about luxury upgrades for Pyongyang and an expensive “wallet or life” Halloween.

Binance pledged to cover all losses, while token issuers and chain operators froze between $2.7 billion and $3 billion. Lazarus-linked thefts now total an estimated $13.3 billion.

Similar incidents previously blamed on North Korean actors include the 2020 KuCoin breach ($275 million), Ronin Bridge ($620 million in 2022), DMM Bitcoin ($308 million in 2024) and Bybit ($1.46 billion in February 2025).

Based on information from cryptonews.net