The Bybit cryptocurrency theft which saw almost $1.5 billion in funds stolen, has now been attributed to the notorious North Korean Lazarus Group by the FBI.

Cryptocurrency buyers should be prepared for more and bigger threats after North Korea’s recent robbery of close to $1.5 billion of cryptocurrency from crypto exchange Bybit. That’s just one of the implications of a study appearing in the February 2025 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that North Korea was responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange ByBit. The agency said it refers to this specific North Korean malicious cyber activity as "TraderTraitor.