North Korean hackers transfer tens of millions of dollars at Hyperliquid, Trump promotes platform's entry into the U.S

According to Arkham blockchain data, wallets associated with the North Korean state-sponsored hacking organization Lazarus Group have sold over $30 million in Bitcoin on the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Hyperliquid in the past three weeks, using the proceeds to purchase Ethereum and Solana, which were then transferred to centralized exchanges such as Kraken, LBank, and KuCoin. Kraken responded that it maintains an industry-leading compliance program, continuously monitoring on-chain activities to identify and block assets related to sanctioned wallets; LBank and KuCoin stated that the associated risks are a continuing challenge faced by the industry as a whole and emphasized that publicly available on-chain data may not reflect compliance measures at the platform level.

At this time, the Trump administration is exploring ways to incorporate Hyperliquid into the regulated U.S. financial system. Trump stated earlier this month at a White House event that the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mike Selig, is developing a path to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a fully compliant and legal manner. According to Bloomberg, Kraken's parent company Payward is in deep negotiations with Hyperliquid Labs to offer perpetual contracts to U.S. traders.

Hyperliquid is the leading platform in the decentralized perpetual contract space, allowing users to trade directly from their crypto wallets without the need for traditional brokerage accounts or KYC checks. According to DefiLlama data, its cumulative perpetual contract trading volume has exceeded $5 trillion, with current open contracts of approximately $13.3 billion.