Lazarus Group, a hacking group closely linked to North Korea than Tesla (TSLA), an electric car manufacturer led by Elon Musk, holds more Bitcoin (BTC) than Tesla (TSLA).
At the time of pressing, Lazarus had 13,441 BTC worth $1.14 billion, according to Data Source Arkham Intelligence. That’s 16% more than Tesla’s Bitcoin Stash at 11,509 BTC.
Lazarus Group’s Bitcoin Holdings (Arkham Intelligence)
Last month, Lazarus Group attacked Crypto Exchange Bybit, emitting $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) from its platform. Recently, some of the stolen funds have been converted to Bitcoin, and as confirmed by Bybit CEO Ben Zhou, 12,836 BTC has been distributed to 9,117 unique wallets.
Tesla acquired Bitcoin Stash four years ago and has been hugging ever since, making it the fourth largest publicly listed company in the world from the perspective of BTC Holdings.
Despite President Donald Trump’s positive attitude towards cryptocurrency sparking calls for accelerated adoption of BTC among businesses and sovereign nations around the world, there was a striking contrast between Tesla and Lazarus groups.
On Thursday, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to making the United States a “uncontroversial Bitcoin superpower and the crypto capital of the world.” Against this background, it will be interesting to see whether Tesla and other US companies respond to being cast a shadow by North Korean hackers.
Meanwhile, the US government holds 198,109 BTC, more than $16 billion, representing the coins seized in enforcement action. Trump recently announced the same thing as the Strategic Reserve.
