Making Daily Headlines · Page 2
A $6.3 Billion Theft Gives the Blockchain an Unwanted Travel Diary
· New York time
North Korea has denied involvement in the $6.3 billion hack of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, after US government agencies and cyber analysts blamed Pyongyang for the record theft. Blockchain researchers have traced billions in stolen cryptocurrency across networks, according to CNBC. The denial and the researchers' work leave two sharply different accounts of the same missing money. The scale of the theft makes the dispute consequential for an industry that asks customers to trust exchanges with digital assets. It also puts a spotlight on the work of following funds after a breach. Cryptocurrency can move across networks, but those movements can leave records for analysts to examine. Tracing assets and attributing responsibility are related tasks, not the same thing: researchers can follow transactions while governments and analysts assess who was behind them. North Korea's rejection is part of that attribution dispute, not a recovery of the funds. For an industry fond of presenting the ledger as a source of clarity, the affair has produced a remarkably expensive detective story. The transactions can become a trail, yet a trail does not put the money back in customers' accounts. The exchange business sells convenience as well as access to crypto, and convenience looks less reassuring when billions leave without their owners. The ledger may remember the journey, but the owners would probably prefer the return trip.
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