🇰🇵 North Korea's Crypto Empire

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Last week, we witnessed the court finally approving FTX's liquidation plan, which entails the defunct exchange selling off substantial quantities of crypto. Many were concerned that this would cause a significant dump in the market, but it seems the liquidation approach is designed to minimize market impact.

JPEX, an exchange based in Hong Kong, joins the list of crypto exchanges that have faced turmoil. Alarmingly, they have imposed a 999 USDT fee to withdraw from their site, with the maximum withdrawal being 1000 USDT — a very suspicious move in our opinion.

We also cover Mark Cuban's hacking incident and how North Korean hackers are amassing a fortune for the state by stealing crypto.

Let’s dive in! 👇

Markets

Court Approves FTX Liquidation Plan – Here’s the Full List of Cryptos to Be Sold (4 minute read)
A court decision has given FTX the green light to liquidate $3.6 billion in cryptocurrencies, causing a downturn in the market. Galaxy Digital, led by Mike Novogratz, is set to oversee this massive sell-off following FTX's dramatic downfall and bankruptcy in November 2022. The discussions around FTX's liquidation are primarily driven by traders concerned about an overcrowded market. The liquidation process will start with blocks of $50 million weekly, gradually increasing to $100 million. There are stricter guidelines for selling "insider-affiliated" tokens, requiring a 10-day notice to both creditors and the US Trustee. Additionally, FTX plans to venture into cryptocurrency hedging contracts, initially focusing on Bitcoin and Ethereum. A revelation about FTX's significant Solana holdings possibly led to a 4% decrease in SOL's price to $18.50 last week. FTX holds nearly 16% of the total Solana circulating supply. The liquidation approach involves releasing just $9.2 million of Solana tokens each month, aiming to minimize the asset's immediate market impact.

JPEX exchange suspends certain operations, hikes fees amid liquidity crisis (2 minute read)
Crypto exchange JPEX is navigating a stormy sea at the moment. Due to an ongoing liquidity hiccup, they've hit the pause button on their Earn program and increased withdrawal fees, pointing fingers at some third-party market makers who seem to have frozen their funds with ill intentions. Users trying to withdraw funds are facing a rather hefty 999 USDT fee, capped at a maximum of 1,000 USDT, giving 'ouch' a whole new meaning. JPEX has promised to sort things out once they've wrangled the liquidity back from those market makers. On top of this, Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has raised an eyebrow, expressing concerns about JPEX's questionable claims of overseas licenses, unmaterialized business partnerships, and suspiciously attractive returns on their interest-bearing products.

Tech

Ethereum’s Holesky Testnet Fails to Launch, in Rare Tech Misstep for the Blockchain (2 minute read)
Ethereum developers had a bit of a hiccup with the launch of the new test network when Holesky, hit a snag last Friday, just in time for the anniversary of the historic "Merge" upgrade. Despite some validators attempting a manual kickstart, a misconfiguration in one of the genesis files caused a delay. The Ethereum core crew decided to hit the pause button for about two weeks to regroup and iron out the kinks. This stumble is a rare blooper for Ethereum, considering its track record of smooth upgrades over the past year. From the groundbreaking "Merge" to the recent "Shapella" in April, Ethereum's been on a roll, all while expanding its ecosystem with snazzy layer-2 blockchains.

North Korean Lazarus Group Nabs $3.4 Billion in Crypto via LinkedIn (2 minute read)
North Korean hackers have certainly been honing their digital mischief skills, managing to steal roughly $3.4 billion in Crypto. Surprisingly, they've even turned to LinkedIn as a hunting ground, craftily tricking unsuspecting victims. This hefty sum includes various high-profile hacks, from the $100 million Harmony’s Horizon bridge breach in 2022 to this year’s $35 million Atomic Wallet escapade, not forgetting the infamous WannaCry ransomware episode back in 2017. Hugh Brooks, the security operations director at CertiK, emphasizes that the Lazarus Group's audacity and their knack for effective exploits have become a significant revenue stream for North Korea.

Misc

Mark Cuban’s MetaMask wallet drained nearly $900,000 in suspected phishing attack (3 minute read)
Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and notorious in the US investment scene, found himself in a phishing hack. A hacker managed to walk away with a cool $900,000 from one of his wallets. WazzCrypto, a crypto sleuth, spotted the fishy business linked to Mark Cuban's wallet and sounded the alarm. It turns out this wallet, dubbed "Mark Cuban 2" had been untouched for a good six months before suddenly being drained. $2 million in USDC was withdrawn, followed by an Ethereum to MATIC token makeover after a quick stop at Coinbase. Mark Cuban himself confirmed this escapade, revealing that he woke up his dormant MetaMask wallet only to find it had been drained. The lesson here?

FTX reopens claims portal following security incident(2 minute read)
The FTX claims portal is back in action after resolving a recent cybersecurity hiccup that involved a breach targeting Kroll, the third-party agency handling creditor claims for FTX's bankruptcy. FTX clarified that the temporary freezing of user accounts was a precautionary step and assured users that enhanced security measures have been instituted on the claims platform. The incident stemmed from a "SIM swapping" attack on Kroll in August, where a threat actor accessed certain files containing personal information of bankruptcy claimants related to BlockFi, FTX, and Genesis. While affected user accounts were frozen, FTX emphasized that no passwords or KYC data were compromised in the breach. FTX customers have until September 29 to submit a proof of claim through Kroll.

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