A Write Up On North Korea's Role In Bitcoin And How Does It Affect Prices?

Why Focus On North Korea In Bitcoin Mining?

It is known that North Korea has long been famous for firebrand rhetoric and provocative action that has increased tension with neighboring states as the secretive nation has surprisingly found itself at the center of a cryptocurrency revolution that is largely caused out of the necessity. The rumors are doing their rounds that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is the reason behind some of the wild price swings of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.  

As there goes by years of crippling economic sanctions and pressure from proximal governments forcing North Korea to develop creative strategies for circumventing financial restrictions, it furthers military hardware acquisition and other power-play capital. Efforts are on to build an effective deterrent to what is perceived as external threats to its existence, as it has landed on a relatively straightforward path to overcoming these onerous restrictions called Bitcoin.

Finding Financing in Unlikely Places

However, in the case of North Korea, the Bitcoin is an effective tool for several reasons where a hermit kingdom is cut off from the modern financial system and has little access to hard currency as it comes easy to understand why Bitcoin is so appealing. It then stands out as the perfect solution for the budding financial problems caused by years of disconnection from the global economy. 

It has to be seen how it is that while taking into consideration that even China is deliberately bearing down on Kim Jong Un’s rogue government where the cryptocurrency serves as a pertinent tool for overcoming then challenges and barriers preventing commerce. This is due to the susceptible ancillary services like wallets and exchanges where North Korea can effectively mine or steal Bitcoin to support its economy and missile program. 

It has been found that it is true that all the Bitcoin transactions can be tracked via the decentralized ledger as there are numerous ways to scatter and withdraw bitcoins outside of mainstream finance whether via a process called tumbling or person-to-person transactions on LocalBitcoins.com making it more difficult to track true ownership. Additionally, it is a little oversight from regulatory bodies meaning Bitcoin can masterfully be moved across the globe with very few limitations. 

Weaponizing Cross-Border Transactability

When it comes to Bitcoin, it is here that the decentralized properties surely make Bitcoin an attractive haven for most of the parties lending themselves deeply to North Korea’s applications with the example of WannaCry Ransomeware, locking users out of their computers thereby until they paid a heavy ransom in Bitcoin. Whereas the truth is that while this ransomware has exhibited only limited success much before it was defined by security experts and likely served as a proving ground for future attacks related to cryptocurrency and the infrastructures that support it.

North Korea, on the other hand, has already purportedly taken advantage of their proximity to neighboring South Korea as the nation’s momentum in the cryptocurrency sphere with the hack of You bit considered among the most brazen attempt yet to steal Bitcoin with hackers absconding with over 17% of the exchange’s assets forcing the firm to bankruptcy proceedings.

The fact to be considered is that hereby apart from the focus on outright theft, mining has also been another component of that nation’s multifaceted tactics with another strategy that was allegedly deployed by the Andariel hacking collective which is a group that is widely attributed to North Korea, which was a target servers in foreign countries for mining Bitcoin thereby delivering to the attacker's wallets and accomplishing mining locally has been readily possible thanks to an abundance of cheap energy from coal. 

It is seen that though the country’s coal exports to China which is its main trading partner, have been drastically reduced due to sanctions, the use of cheap coal power for Bitcoin mining gives the North Koreans a substantial edge which is in effect providing the country a means to export its commodity production without having to transfer any raw material and giving thanks to no restrictions by which bitcoin’s cross border movement has been found as a relatively efficient way to monetize its mining efforts with minimal risk of getting caught in the sanctions dragnet. 

Finally to conclude Turning Weaknesses into Strengths 

Whereas it is counted that the entirety of North Korea’s activity in cryptocurrency ultimately remains a mystery due to the nature of Bitcoin itself and the nation’s opacity the Bitcoin is converted and ultimately withdrawn from a system is one of the questions that crop up in many readers’ minds. There is still an even bigger question though which is how are these revenues spent? Whether it is for financing weapons development programs, funding more attacks, or just popping up the broader economy? 

Whereby it can be considered that as these questions are relevant and will likely yield few answers, North Koreas’ relationship to the Bitcoin may only strengthen over time as the international community coalesces to crackdown on what it perceives as the nation’s belligerence. It comes as although the contribution to the proliferation of cryptocurrency more malicious than positive with few other outlets for financing and cross border transactions where Bitcoin stands out as the perfect and valid resolution for North Korea’s many difficulties and problems. 

It can be counted on as thanks to its lack of oversight and decentralized properties, Bitcoin is ideal for evading foreign authorities and delivering the type of fungibility necessary to sustain the rogue nation’s ambitions.