{"id":75990,"date":"2026-07-27T08:32:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T08:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/clarity-act-closes-gaps-north-koreas-lazarus-group-used-to-steal-6-75-billion\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T08:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T08:32:47","slug":"clarity-act-closes-gaps-north-koreas-lazarus-group-used-to-steal-6-75-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/clarity-act-closes-gaps-north-koreas-lazarus-group-used-to-steal-6-75-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"CLARITY Act Closes Gaps North Korea&#8217;s Lazarus Group Used to Steal $6.75 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Lummis says CLARITY Act Sections 303 and 305 target North Korea\u2019s Lazarus Group with new freeze tools.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">North Korea-linked hackers took roughly two-thirds of the $972 million stolen in H1 2026.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">CLARITY Act needs 60 Senate votes and seven Democratic crossovers before its floor-vote deadline.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Section 303 and 305 Target Illicit Funds<\/h2>\n<p>Cynthia Lummis, one of the CLARITY Act\u2019s lead sponsors, took to X and pointed to the bill\u2019s anti-money laundering provisions as she pushes for a Senate floor vote before lawmakers leave for August recess.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_834390\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-834390\" style=\"width:1045px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-834390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image source: X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Wyoming Republican has repeated the argument since defending the legislation from Senator Elizabeth Warren earlier this month, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenLummis\/status\/2072450008494858301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stating that<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSec. 303 enables new crypto sanctions on Iran. Sec. 305 lets exchanges stop illicit funds before they reach North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Section 303 gives the Treasury <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/lummis-fires-back-at-warren-says-clarity-act-has-16-illicit-finance-safeguards\/\">new special-measure authority<\/a> to designate foreign jurisdictions or financial institutions as a \u201cprimary money laundering concern\u201d specifically for digital asset activity. Once a jurisdiction is designated, covered exchanges and stablecoin issuers must prohibit or restrict fund transfers involving it, extending a tool regulators have long used against correspondent banks into crypto for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Section 305, on the other hand, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/noble-law-enforcement-backs-clarity-act\/\">works at the transaction level,<\/a> allowing exchange operators and stablecoin issuers to place a 30-day hold on any transaction they have reason to believe involves illicit activity, extendable to 180 days total if law enforcement submits a formal written request.<\/p>\n<p>Firms that act in good faith get a safe harbor from civil liability, while existing suspicious activity report obligations stay in place. Lummis has paired both sections with Section 201, which extends Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) anti-money laundering (AML) requirements to digital asset firms for the first time, part of what she calls more than 16 illicit-finance safeguards built into the bill, a case she has also made for why the CLARITY Act would <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/clarity-act-would-protect-customer-crypto-from-exchange-bankruptcies-senator-says\/\">protect customer crypto in exchange<\/a> bankruptcies.<\/p>\n<h2>Lazarus Group\u2019s Escalating 2026 Haul<\/h2>\n<p>North Korea-linked hackers were responsible for roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trmlabs.com\/resources\/blog\/h1-2026-crypto-hacks-reach-record-high-as-losses-fall-below-usd-1-billion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two-thirds of all crypto hacking losses<\/a> worldwide in the first half of 2026, about $643 million of the $972 million stolen across a record 207 incidents.<\/p>\n<p>The single largest hits came in April, when the Lazarus Group drained Solana-based Drift Protocol of $285 million and then compromised the Layerzero bridge connecting DeFi platform KelpDAO to Ethereum for <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/lazarus-group-suspected-of-moving-175m-in-eth-after-arbitrum-freezes-71m-from-kelpdao-exploit\/\">another $292 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Those losses build on a pattern <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chainalysis.com\/blog\/crypto-hacking-stolen-funds-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">researchers have tracked for years<\/a>, with DPRK-linked actors stealing a record $2.02 billion in 2025 alone, a 51% jump from the year before, pushing the group\u2019s cumulative haul since 2019 to $6.75 billion. The single largest exploit remains the February 2025 attack on Bybit, where Lazarus-linked hackers made off with roughly $1.5 billion in ethereum.<\/p>\n<p>The group has also shifted tactics this year, moving beyond bridge and protocol exploits toward direct targeting of crypto executives. To this point, Bitcoin.com News <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/mach-o-man-malware-steals-macos-keychain-data-in-lazarus-group-crypto-campaign\/\">tracked a Lazarus-linked campaign<\/a> dubbed Mach-O Man in April, which uses fake meeting invitations and a social-engineering technique called ClickFix to trick fintech and crypto staff into pasting malicious commands into their own Mac terminals, giving hackers a foothold before any onchain theft even begins.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/lummis-clarity-act-lazarus-group-treasury-freeze\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways Lummis says CLARITY Act Sections 303 and 305 target North Korea\u2019s Lazarus Group with new freeze tools. North Korea-linked hackers took roughly two-thirds of the $972 million stolen in H1 2026. CLARITY Act needs 60 Senate votes and seven Democratic crossovers before its floor-vote deadline. Section [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3947362404,"featured_media":75991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3947362404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}