SEOUL – North Korea-linked hacking groups were responsible for about two-thirds of cryptocurrency stolen worldwide in the first half of this year, a report by San Francisco-based blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs showed Friday.

According to the report, North Korea-linked actors stole $643 million worth of cryptocurrency during the January-June period, accounting for 66.2 percent of the $972 million in global crypto hack losses.

TRM Labs attributed much of the stolen value to two major decentralized finance attacks in April — a $285 million breach of Drift, a Solana-based decentralized derivatives exchange, and a $292 million hack targeting KelpDAO, an Ethereum liquid restaking protocol.

The two cases alone caused combined…