Binance Hack Launderers Mint Elon Musk and Animal Meme Coins to Move Stolen Crypto
Summary
North Korean hackers are using newly minted meme coins and decentralized-exchange liquidity pools to obscure part of the $6.4 billion stolen from Binance. Elliptic found the tactic on Near, Tron and Solana. On Near, six disposable tokens moved about 117,000 NEAR, worth roughly $430,000, before funds flowed into stablecoins or a cross-chain bridge. The method breaks direct wallet-to-wallet links but does not erase the onchain trail; it mainly slows investigators. More than $3 billion of the stolen crypto reportedly remains unlaundered.
