Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has rejected allegations that Pyongyang was behind the $6.3 billion cryptocurrency theft from Binance, calling the US accusation a “political provocation” and an attempt to damage North Korea’s international image.
In a statement issued on Monday and carried by state news agency Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim criticized the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for linking North Korea to the attack on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
She described the allegation as “absurd” and said Washington was attempting to portray North Korea as responsible for cybercrime incidents around the world.
“It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads the international public opinion as if all the cybercrimes in different parts of the world are our deeds,” she said.
Kim added that Pyongyang was “closely monitoring” what she described as continued provocations by the United States.
Kim Questions US Motives Over Stolen Cryptocurrency
In her statement, Kim also referred to Washington’s announcement last year that it would confiscate illegally stolen cryptocurrency assets and establish them in a national strategic reserve.
She suggested that examining who would receive the recovered funds could offer clues about the mastermind behind the hacking incident.
Kim accused the United States of repeatedly linking North Korea to cybercrime incidents, including last year’s hacking of cryptocurrency exchange Bybit. She described the latest allegations as another attempt to infringe upon the country’s sovereignty and undermine its international standing.
The FBI had accused a North Korean-linked hacking group, known as TraderTraitor, of carrying out the Binance attack on October 29. The bureau said the hackers were moving most of the stolen assets into Ethereum and released wallet addresses linked to the funds, urging cryptocurrency firms to block transactions involving them.
Blockchain tracking firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis also linked the attack to North Korea.
Meanwhile, Binance resumed transactions after temporarily suspending them following the incident. The exchange said it had covered around 95% of the stolen assets from its reserves and would cover the remaining losses.
On November 1, Binance processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits, resulting in net outflows of approximately $3.64 billion. The company said the initial surge in withdrawals had subsequently declined and was stabilizing.
US agencies have continued urging cryptocurrency exchanges to block wallets connected to the stolen funds. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said he was not concerned about the incident and that Washington was still learning about it.
