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Bybit Sues North Korea Over $1.5B Hack, Freezes Assets
Bybit secured a court order freezing $1.5B in stolen assets after suing North Korea's Lazarus Group over the February hack, testing legal recovery after state-linked crypto thefts.
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Bybit has sued North Korea and the Lazarus Group over the February 2025 hack that drained about $1.5 billion from the exchange, and won a preliminary injunction freezing stolen assets, the exchange said in an announcement.
The suit names North Korea and the Lazarus Group as defendants. The court order, granted on August 10, 2026, freezes the assets during litigation, preventing further movement while the recovery case proceeds, Bybit said.
The theft was one of the largest exchange breaches on record. The FBI attributed the hack to North Korean actors in a public service announcement. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis has traced the stolen funds and linked addresses used in the Bybit hack to the BingX and Phemex breaches, reinforcing the attribution to a single actor.