North Korean hackers launder Binance funds with meme coins
4 Security North Korean hackers laundered $430,000 in stolen NEAR from Binance by minting meme coins and using liquidity pools to obscure the funds’ trail, making tracking more difficult.
North Korean hackers have devised a novel method to launder funds stolen from the $6.4 billion Binance hack by creating and deploying their own meme coins. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reports that between November 5 and 7, 2026, at least six tokens—FUK, OLCCL, MEILI, MMLI, DABI, and SINU—were minted on the NEAR blockchain. The hackers paired each token with NEAR in liquidity pools on decentralized exchanges. They deposited stolen NEAR into these pools, received the new tokens, and then sold them back through secondary wallets. This process effectively broke the direct on-chain link between the original and receiving wallets, making the illicit funds harder to trace. Approximately 117,000 NEAR, valued at around $430,000, was laundered using this technique. The method mimics regular trading activity, complicating detection. Similar tactics have been seen on Tron and Solana. Most trading was internal, and the meme coins quickly became inactive after use.
