Bybit Sues North Korea and Lazarus Group, Asset Freeze

A major cryptocurrency exchange has launched an unprecedented civil lawsuit against North Korea and its affiliated hackers in a bid to recover assets from one of the largest digital heists in history. Bybit, a Dubai-based exchange, filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, naming the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its intelligence agency the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the Lazarus Group as defendants.

The legal action stems from a sophisticated cyberattack on February 21, 2025, which resulted in the theft of more than 400,000 Ether tokens from the exchange. The assets were valued at approximately $1.5 billion at the time of the theft. U.S. federal investigators, including the FBI, attributed the attack to North Korean actors shortly after the breach, designating the operation as "TraderTraitor."

In a significant development for the exchange’s recovery efforts, a federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction freezing identifiable stolen assets held by unnamed defendants, referred to in court documents as John Doe. The order, intended to preserve assets during litigation, prevents the transfer or sale of those specific funds. This...