The hackers who stole US$6.3 billion (S$8 billion) from Binance in crypto’s biggest ever heist have turned to one of the sector’s most gimmicky assets to launder a slice of the proceeds: memecoins.

At least six new tokens were created on the NEAR blockchain network within days of the theft, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said, which allowed the attackers to pass through about US$430,000 of the stolen crypto.

The scheme was designed to disguise the path of money – rather than dupe unwitting traders into exchanging stolen assets for clean cash – and make it harder to trace where the ill-gotten gains eventually ended up.

Each of the six tokens – identified as FUK, OLCCL, MEILI, MMLI, DABI and SINU – traded heavily for a few…