North Korea’s Lazarus Group has been linked to a $23M hack on UK crypto startup Lykke, involving 158 BTC and 2,161 ETH. The stolen crypto was laundered via DAI swaps and dispersed across multiple wallets, according to ongoing investigations.

UK-registered crypto exchange and startup Lykke suffered a major security breach in June 2024 in which hackers stole roughly $23 million in digital assets, including about 158 BTC and 2,161 ETH. Subsequent tracing by blockchain analytics firms and an investigation by the UK Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) attributed the attack to the Lazarus Group, a North Korea-linked state-sponsored hacking outfit already associated with multiple large crypto heists worldwide. The incident is regarded as one of the largest crypto thefts involving a UK-based platform. Investigators report that the stolen ETH was rapidly swapped into the DAI stablecoin via DeFi protocols such as MakerDAO, while the BTC and other assets were fragmented and moved through multiple wallets and crypto services to hinder tracking and compliance controls. Analysis from OFSI and firms like Whitestream indicates that the laundering relied on transaction-obfuscation services and high-risk intermediaries, fitting a pattern seen in other Lazarus operations aimed at evading sanctions and potentially funding North Korea’s strategic and military programs. The hack proved existential for Lykke. The exchange halted trading and ultimately shut down operations by the end of 2024, and in March 2025 a UK court ordered the company into liquidation following compensation claims from more than 70 affected users, with reported customer losses in the millions of pounds. Lykke’s Swiss parent entered its own liquidation process, and founder Richard Olsen was declared bankrupt amid parallel investigations in Switzerland. The case has become a reference point in debates on centralized-exchange security, DeFi-based laundering, and the growing role of state-backed actors in large-scale crypto crime.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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