North Korean hackers were responsible for nearly half of all cryptocurrency-related losses last year, a leading blockchain analytics firm has found, underlying the DPRK’s rapid expansion of its cyber activities to fund its weapons programs.

The DPRK “shattered” its own records for theft on the way to stealing nearly $1.7 billion of the $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2022, Chainalysis states in a new report published Wednesday summarizing damages from crypto-related crimes in 2022. 

The report found that global cryptocurrency losses last year totaled $3.8 billion.

“Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols as victims accounted for 82.1% of all