North Korea's Lazarus Group Unloads $30M in Bitcoin on Hyperliquid Amid US Regulatory Talks

A North Korean hacking group, Lazarus Group, has sold over $30 million in Bitcoin on the decentralized derivatives platform Hyperliquid. According to blockchain data from Arkham, wallets linked to the state-sponsored hacking group converted their sales into Ethereum and Solana before transferring them to centralized exchanges such as Kraken, LBank, and KuCoin.

This is not the first time North Korea-linked wallets have appeared on Hyperliquid. In December 2024, a MetaMask security researcher identified suspected North Korean wallets that had been trading on the platform since at least October of that year, causing around $250 million in net outflows in a single day.

Kraken's parent company Payward is currently in advanced talks with Hyperliquid Labs to offer selected perpetual contracts to U.S. traders through its CFTC-regulated derivatives arm Bitnomial. President Trump has mentioned this effort, stating that the CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. 'in a fully compliant and legal fashion.'