North Korea Gang Test NFTs For Illegal Foreign Trades

Non-fungible token adoption is rapidly increasing in Asia, with several countries leading the list for the highest NFT adoption rates. North Korea is the latest Asian country to adopt non-fungible tokens as a foreign currency. The explosion of interest and use cases in NFTs at a global level is a testament to the maturity of NFTs into a serious digital asset class. In this article, we shall explore more about the NFT integration in the foreign market.

North Korea Adopts NFTs For Foreign Trades

Earlier today, a report from some technical staff confirmed that the North Korean government is indirectly exploring the use case of non-fungible tokens as a foreign currency. According to a reliable source shared with Daily NK, the North Korean government has been secretly conducting covert experiments since January up to May 2025 in China to test whether it could generate a foreign currency through NFTs. Report explained:

“Several technical staff from the Korea Computer Center disguised themselves as trade representatives starting in late January, rented multiple locations in China, and experimented with earning foreign currency by selling NFT works on NFT marketplaces. The technical staff submitted their final report to North Korea on May 19 and have since withdrawn.”

Based on the report, the experiment was part of the North Korean government’s efforts to secure new foreign currency revenue streams. The technical staff, divided into groups of two to three people, spent about five months in various Chinese cities accessing overseas markets and trade networks to examine technical feasibility and profitability. They attempted to register and sell NFTs in the Southeast Asian NFT marketplaces in Thailand and the Philippines, where identity verification requirements are less stringent. The source further revealed:

“North Korea was more interested in the marketplace platforms where NFTs are traded and structures that allow anonymous asset transfers than in NFTs themselves. They experimented with methods to conceal actual ownership through blockchain wallets and manage NFT assets and profits by registering under third-country corporate names.”

North Korea Taps NFTs For Illegal Trades

The technical staff’s final report found that the NFT-based revenue generation was technically possible but impractical due to various problems, including legal risks in China, instability of Southeast Asian NFT market platforms and high operating costs relative to profits. North Korea aimed to use NFTs as a new foreign currency acquisition method to evade sanctions from other nations.

It’s not the first time for the North Korean regime to reportedly get involved in shady practices. Earlier this year, hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime successfully store more than $1.5 billion from the crypto exchange Bybit and later converted at least $300m of their record-breaking crypto heist to unrecoverable funds. Since 2021, North Korean hackers have stolen billions of dollars from the crypto market.

BYBIT LOST MORE THAN $1.5B DUE TO ONE MISTAKE

HACKER DRAINED OVER 500K

HOW ETH WILL REACT? pic.twitter.com/FDsLn8xB0n

— Mash (@0xmash_) February 21, 2025