US Secretary Of State Deletes Post Claiming Crypto Mixer Was Sponsored By North Korea

0

Last Updated on 10 August 2022 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
View all posts

In the highly interesting book ‘Generations’ by Bobby Duffy, the author tries to explain the different ways in which Boomers, Millennials and Generation Z looks at things. It is clear that the current US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is a boomer who is not sure as to what the difference between crypto mixers and hacking groups are.

Over the weekend, the US Treasury Department announced that they had sanctioned Tornado Cash, a well-known crypto mixer site.

This was done because the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking group, had been able to launder several hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of stolen crypto from various exchange and bridge hacks through the platform of Tornado Cash.

Advertentie.

North Korea

Blinken clearly wanted to show younger US voters, of whom some 20% is by now invested in crypto, that he knows a thing or two about crypto and Bitcoin.

In a since deleted tweet, Blinken said:

We will continue to aggressively pursue actions against currency mixers laundering virtual currency for criminals. Today, US Treasury sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which is a US-sanctioned, DPRK state-sponsored hacking group, used by the DPRK to launder money.

Of course the tweet was deleted about one hour later when someone pointed out to the US State Department that Tornado Cash is not a North Korean site.

According to crypto research site Elliptic some $1.5 billion in proceeds from crimes such as ransomware, hacks and fraud were laundered through the Tornado Cash site.

The regularity of the deposits into Tornado over extended periods of time suggests that an automated process is being used. We have observed very similar programmatic laundering of funds stolen from the Ronin Bridge, which has been attributed to Lazarus, as well as a number of other attacks linked to the group.

Elliptic said.

romvo79 / Depositphotos.com