Ethereum dev who gave lecture on crypto in North Korea released from prison

Former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith was released from prison on Wednesday after serving almost five years behind bars.

Griffith was sentenced in 2022 to 63 months in prison for assisting North Korea with evading sanctions.

His release from a Michigan low security prison comes on the conditions of parole and work restrictions, according to Brantly Millegan, executive director of the Ethereum Identity Foundation, who first shared the development on X.

In 2018, Griffith was one of a number of crypto experts invited to attend a conference in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

On his return to the US, Griffith was alleged to have discussed at the conference how North Korea could use cryptocurrency to evade economic sanctions, violating US sanctions on the hermit kingdom.

Photos from the conference showed Griffith standing in front of a whiteboard with the words, “No sanctions! :)” written on it.

North Korean hackers, commonly referred to as the Lazarus Group, have in recent years seized on crypto as a way to steal funds.

Between 2007 and 2023, the group’s hacks have cost crypto firms and DeFi projects over $3.4 billion, per a DL News calculation.

In February, North Korean hackers swiped $1.4 billion from crypto exchange Bybit, the largest heist in financial history.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin maintained Griffth had done nothing wrong by speaking at the conference.

“He delivered a presentation based on publicly available info about open-source software,” Buterin said in an X post at the time. “There was no weird hackery [or] ‘advanced tutoring.‘”

Buterin signed a petition for Griffith’s early release in 2023.

Early release

In July, US District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel of New York agreed to release Griffith seven months early.

Griffith was eligible for a reduction in his sentence in part because he had “zero criminal history points at the time of sentencing,” the judge noted in his decision.

Griffith received his prison sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The act forbids US citizens from exporting goods, services, or technology to North Korea without a licence from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Griffith was also fined $100,000.

Brian Klein, a lawyer for Griffith and now also defending Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm against charges he helped Lazarus launder stolen crypto, told the Washington Post in July that Griffith was “sincerely remorseful.”

Griffith wasn’t the only one to face blowback after attending the Pyongyang conference.

Alejandro Cao de Benos, a Spanish aristocrat and the founder of advocacy group the Korea Friendship Association, was indicted in 2022 by US authorities for allegedly recruiting Griffith.

In 2023, Cao de Benos was arrested by Spanish authorities, who accused him of aiding North Korea in circumventing international sanctions through crypto. He was released soon after.

British national Christopher Emms, who invited Griffith to the conference, was also charged alongside Cao de Benos with the conspiracy to help North Korea access crypto.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.