Wall Street Journal: The Secret Crypto Money-Laundering Operation — Who Is Helping North Korean Hackers Move Binance's Massive Funds?

Binance suffered the largest crypto theft on record, with hackers draining more than $6 billion and still holding roughly $3 billion after stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle blacklisted about half the funds within hours. Chainalysis traced the laundering through more than 10,000 wallets, with THORChain processing over $46 million of the stolen funds within 72 hours and collecting more than $200,000 in fees, while Wasabi Wallet mixed nearly $4 million in the same window. Both platforms kept processing Binance-linked transactions even after the FBI named THORChain’s node operators and urged crypto services to block the funds, reviving the debate over whether “decentralized” protocols should bear AML responsibility. The episode matters because DeFi remains largely outside traditional AML rules, and critics—including former federal prosecutors—argue that offering a escape route from tracing is effectively part of these platforms’ business model. Watch whether regulators or courts force node operators and coordinators to screen transactions, and whether THORChain’s claimed 111-node setup and removal of its admin key defuse the decentralization challenge.