US crypto exchange Kraken has detailed a North Korean hacker’s attempt to infiltrate the organization by applying for a job interview.

“What started as a routine hiring process for an engineering role quickly turned into an intelligence-gathering operation,” the company wrote in a May 1 blog post.

Kraken said the applicant’s red flags appeared early on in the process when they joined an interview under a name different from what they applied with and “occasionally switched between voices,” apparently being guided through the interview.

Rather than immediately rejecting the applicant, Kraken decided to advance them through its hiring process to gather information about the tactics used.

International sanctions have effectively cut North Korea off from the rest of the world, and the country’s ruling Kim family dictatorship has long targeted crypto companies and users to top up the country’s coffers. It’s stolen billions worth of crypto so far this year.

Kraken reported that industry partners had tipped them off that North Korean actors were actively applying for jobs at crypto companies. 

“We received a list of email addresses linked to the hacker group, and one of them matched the email the candidate used to apply to Kraken,” it said. 

With this information, the firm’s security team uncovered a network of fake identities used by the hacker to apply to multiple companies. 

Kraken also noted technical inconsistencies, which included the use of remote Mac desktops through VPNs and altered identification documents.

Kraken CSO @c7five recently spoke to @CBSNews about how a North Korean operative unsuccessfully attempted to get a job at Kraken.

Don’t trust. Verify pic.twitter.com/1vVo3perH2

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) May 1, 2025

The applicant’s resume was linked to a GitHub profile containing an email address exposed in a past data breach, and the exchange said the candidate’s primary form of ID “appeared to be altered, likely using details stolen in an identity theft case two years prior.”

During final interviews, Kraken chief security officer Nick Percoco conducted trap identity verification tests that the candidate failed, confirming the deception. 

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“Don’t trust, verify. This core crypto principle is more relevant than ever in the digital age,” Peroco said. “State-sponsored attacks aren’t just a crypto or US corporate issue — they’re a global threat.”

North Korea pulls off biggest-ever crypto hack

North Korea-affiliated hacking collective Lazarus Group was responsible for February’s $1.4 billion Bybit exchange hack, the largest ever for the crypto industry.

North Korean-linked hackers also stole more than $650 million through multiple crypto heists during 2024, while deploying IT workers to infiltrate blockchain and crypto companies as insider threats, according to a statement released by the US, Japan and South Korea in January. 

In April, a subgroup of Lazarus was found to have set up three shell companies, with two in the US, to deliver malware to unsuspecting users and scam crypto developers. 

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Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Sky has pitched a proposal to finalize its upgrade from Maker by replacing its governance token and enabling staking.

The proposal, posted on May 1 to Sky’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) forum, would see the Sky (SKY) token take over the Maker (MKR) token as the protocol’s governance token.

If the DAO accepts, the change would be slated to take place around May 15 to May 19 and downgrading from SKY to MKR would also be disabled.

Sky co-founder Rune Christensen said in response to the proposal that it was a “huge milestone,” which he “fully supports,” and laments that allowing users to downgrade from SKY back to MKR has been a “key limiting factor preventing exchanges from adopting SKY.”

“With this change, exchanges are likely to move faster in quickly adopting SKY without concerns about fracturing liquidity,” he said.

Source: Sky

Penalties on MKR holders who are slow in switching to SKY have also been proposed. 

According to the proposal, a 1% delayed upgrade penalty would apply to all MKR to SKY upgrades starting Sept. 18, increasing every three months. Users hit with a delayed upgrade penalty will also obtain fewer SKY tokens.

Sky staking, temporary pause on liquidations

Christensen said the most important change would be to see SKY staking enabled as part of the changes to the protocol.

Rewards for its decentralized stablecoin, USDS, which are based on the income the Sky Protocol generates, will be enabled two or three weeks after the upgrade of the governance contract, with a splitter rate of 50%, according to Christensen.

Source: Rune Christensen

“Getting past the full upgrade of MKR to SKY is one of the last pieces missing before Sky can transition to 0 fixed costs at the end of 2025, which will ensure an even greater portion of the income the protocol generates goes to the benefit of SKY buybacks, or SKY Staking Rewards,” he said.

SKY liquidations will also be temporarily disabled while the one-way MKR to SKY transition is still in its early stages.

Related: Sky doubles down on token overhaul: Making MKR unusable, launching subDAOs

“This is necessary to prevent risk from price manipulation to the SKY and MKR price while the transition is happening,” Christensen said.

“When SKY market liquidity is restored, Sky Governance will lift the liquidation freeze and move risk parameters to long-term targets,” he added.

Maker rebranded to Sky in August last year but after confusion and negative feedback, Christensen considered going back to the original Maker name just months later.

However, a November poll saw 79% of tokenholders vote to keep the Sky brand as the back end protocol brand with no further changes.

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Crypto exchange Kraken has completed its acquisition of the futures trading platform NinjaTrader and reported its first quarter revenues jumped 19% year-on-year to $471.7 million.

Kraken said in a May 1 report that its NinjaTrader acquisition would give its US customers access to the traditional derivatives market, aligning with its plans to expand its offerings and be the go-to platform for all types of trading.

NinjaTrader is a registered Futures Commission Merchant with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Last month, it rolled out trading for over 11,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds to certain US clients.

The deal, which Kraken dubbed the largest ever between a crypto and traditional finance firm, allows NinjaTrader to expand to the UK, continental Europe and Australian markets and comes as Kraken is preparing for an initial public offering in early 2026. The company is exploring a debt package worth between $200 million and $1 billion to facilitate that transaction.

Kraken revenue, trading volume falls on Trump’s return

Kraken’s $471.7 million revenue in Q1 marked a 19% increase from the year-ago quarter but a 6.8% fall from Q4 2024.

The exchange reported that trading volume fell 9.6% quarter-over-quarter to $208.7 billion while the value of its custodied assets fell 18% to $34.9 billion over the same time.

Kraken attributed the drop to a “slowdown in overall market trading activity” as US President Donald Trump’s threats of implementing sweeping tariffs triggered an 18% fall in the crypto market cap over the quarter.

Key metrics from Kraken’s Q1 report. Source: Kraken

Kraken is one of several crypto platforms that saw record or near-record highs in trading activity in Q4 as Trump’s November election win sparked larger-than-usual market volatility.

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Kraken said that despite a “softening market,” its adjusted EBITDA  — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — jumped 1% from the previous quarter to $187.4 million.

The firm also saw the number of funded accounts on its platform increase 10% quarter-on-quarter to 3.9 million, signaling “deeper client engagement.”

Reuters reported on April 18 that Kraken restructured its workforce after Arjun Sethi was appointed as co-CEO last October. Sethi has laid off around 400 employees since.

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