DeFi & NFT
By Jean-Luc Maracon
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How Deep Does It Go. The 100 workers didn't just cluster in one or two places.
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What North Korea Gains. North Korea needs money. Sanctions cut off most traditional revenue streams, so the regime turned…
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The Ketman Project just dropped a bombshell. Researchers found 100 North Korean IT workers embedded across cryptocurrency projects, and the Ethereum Foundation paid for the whole…
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The workers spread themselves across 53 different crypto initiatives, which is pretty alarming when you think about the scale.
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The 100 workers didn't just cluster in one or two places. They scattered themselves across 53 projects, which means the problem isn't isolated to some obscure corner of crypto.
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And that's kind of the scariest part. The workers blend in. They use fake identities, VPNs, and probably work through intermediaries who don't even know they're hiring someone…
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The Ethereum Foundation's decision to fund this research shows they're taking the threat seriously.
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The workers might also be gathering intelligence. If you're embedded in a crypto project, you can see how security works, where the vulnerabilities are, and who controls what.
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Read also: Ethereum Teeters Near Make-or-Break Price as Traders Brace for Volatile Swing
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The 53 projects these workers touched could be compromised in ways nobody's discovered yet. Maybe there's a backdoor. Maybe there's a vulnerability waiting to be exploited.
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The Ketman Project didn't specify what roles these workers held. Were they junior developers? Senior engineers? Project leads?
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The international community hasn't really figured out how to handle this yet. Traditional sanctions target banks and trade, but crypto moves across borders without asking…
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Some projects are probably scrambling to audit their teams. Others might not even know they're affected.
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The crypto industry talks a lot about decentralization and permissionless systems, but this situation shows the downside.
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Hiring practices in crypto are basically the Wild West. Teams hire developers from Telegram, Discord, and Upwork without background checks.
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