HyperLiquid Encounters $60M in USDC Flight Amid North Korea’s Alleged Probe into Perpetuals Exchange

North Korea-associated addresses, believed to be testing the platform for weaknesses, have accumulated losses exceeding $700,000, according to an analyst.

HyperLiquid, a decentralized exchange and layer-1 blockchain designed for perpetual futures (perps), has seen a significant outflow of USDC amid concerns that North Korean hackers may be interacting with the platform. The information was shared by Tay, a pseudonymous observer recognized for tracking threats from North Korea to crypto protocols, in a post on X.

By 10:00 UTC on Monday, HyperLiquid experienced a record outflow of $60 million in USDC, as tracked by Hashed Official’s Dune-based tool. USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, is primarily used as collateral on HyperLiquid. The deposit bridge still retains $2.2 billion in USDC.

According to Tay, addresses linked to hackers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have suffered losses exceeding $700,000 while engaging in trades on HyperLiquid. The transactions suggest that these hackers are likely familiarizing themselves with the platform in preparation for a possible malicious attack.

“DPRK doesn’t engage in trading; they conduct tests,” Tay said.

CoinDesk reached out to HyperLiquid on X for comment regarding the outflows and the potential threat posed by North Korean hackers.

Tay mentioned that they had contacted HyperLiquid two weeks ago, offering their expertise to help mitigate the risk of a potential attack. “I want to stress that these are some of the most advanced and fast-evolving DPRK threat groups. They are incredibly innovative and persistent. They also manage to exploit 0days, like the one Chrome patched today,” Tay’s message to HyperLiquid read.

HyperLiquid has become the dominant on-chain perpetuals exchange, accounting for over 50% of the total perpetuals trading volume on the blockchain, which reached $8.6 billion in the past 24 hours.

The platform launched its native token, HYPE, on November 29. Since then, HYPE has soared more than 600%, reaching $28.6, and briefly topped $10 billion in market capitalization. As of this writing, HYPE is ranked as the 22nd largest digital asset in the world, according to Coingecko.