Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis says it deployed its in-house artificial intelligence tools to trace stolen funds from the September 24 breach of crypto exchange Bitget, ultimately linking the $387 million theft to North Korean hackers and pushing the regime's 2026 crypto haul past the $1 billion mark.
AI Accelerates the Investigation
According to Chainalysis, investigators used machine-learning systems to follow the laundered assets as they moved rapidly across four separate blockchains. The firm framed the effort as a race against time, with attackers attempting to obscure the trail before analysts could map the flow of funds and flag addresses tied to the heist.
The company said its automated tools helped compress what would normally be a painstaking manual process, allowing analysts to keep pace with the speed at which the stolen crypto was shuffled between networks and services.
When stolen funds move across four blockchains in hours, only machines can keep up with other machines.
The tracing effort reportedly identified behavioral patterns and transaction signatures consistent with previous operations attributed to North Korea-linked threat actors, reinforcing the attribution.
A Billion-Dollar Year for Pyongyang
The Bitget breach is significant not only for its scale but for what it represents cumulatively. Chainalysis said the September incident tipped North Korea's crypto proceeds for 2026 past $1 billion, underscoring how central digital asset theft has become to the regime's financing strategy.
North Korean hacking groups have become notorious for targeting exchanges, bridges, and DeFi protocols, often funneling proceeds through mixers and cross-chain swaps to evade detection. Investigators say these groups move quickly and deliberately, splitting funds and routing them through multiple chains to frustrate tracing efforts.
Key takeaways from the firm's findings include:
- The breach occurred on September 24 and involved roughly $387 million in losses
- Stolen funds were traced across four different blockchains
- The incident pushed North Korea's 2026 crypto total above $1 billion
- Chainalysis credited in-house AI tools with speeding up attribution
The case highlights an escalating arms race between illicit actors and the analytics firms tasked with following their money, as both sides increasingly lean on automation to gain an edge.