It is believed North Korea has accumulated a total of $210 million worth of Bitcoin with the aim of financing a nuclear missile program.

An ex-National Security Agency (NSA) officer stated that North Korea had collected an approximately 11,000 Bitcoins which is valued at about $210 million when converted to fiat money in 2017 to raise funds for its military machine.

Priscilla Moriuchi reiterated that Kim Jong-un has resorted to cryptocurrencies to avoid the crippling sanctions that the United Nations imposed on his regime. Priscilla is a skilled threat intelligence leader and senior professional on East Asia and Pacific regional and cyber issues.

She posited that In December, North Korea cashed in its Bitcoin hoard when its value was at the peak. The regime would have collected just about $120 million if they had waited until January. On December 22, the price of Bitcoin peaked to almost $20,000.

Priscilla, who currently works for Recorded Future, cyber threat Intelligence Company, is suspecting that N Korea attained a large sum of Bitcoins by hacking and mining activities.

It is now believed that hackers from North Korea are responsible for series of attacks on the South Korean and Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges. South Korean National Intelligence Service officials said that North Korea was likely the reason for the attack on Japanese virtual currency exchange Coincheck, which resulted in the loss of about $500 million after a cyber-fissure.

Going by the report released by Recorded Future in January, it detailed how the hacking activities by North Korea were focused towards their rival in the financial system.

Priscilla further explains that enhanced regulations in the space of cryptocurrency are the best security against the supposed unlawful activities committed by North Korea since it would allow for “paper trail” which is a vital element for the tracking of the dealings of Kim Jong-un.

The suppositions that Pyongyang was piling up Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to escape sanctions by UN I initially emerged in December 2017, during a time when CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz signaled the alarm bells.

Kurtz theorized that the anonymous type of cryptocurrencies would make it easy for Kim Jong-un to bypass sanctions of any kind since there is none on Bitcoin, besides, the value has dramatically increased.