North Korea on Bitcoin

Bitcoin has seen a 1,514 percent rise in value during 2017, trading at $963 in January 2017 and currently worth $14,968.43, according to Coindesk.com, on January 2, at 7.20pm GMT.

North Korea has been struggling under economic uncertainty after the United Nations unleashed a series of new sanctions to clamp down fears of World War 3, following ignored calls to end Pyongyang’s nuclear development programme.

Currency analysts have suggested North Korea could now be using cryptocurrency bitcoin to support its weapons development programme since cash flow to the country was cut off.

Bloomberg's Asia Technology editor Edwin Chan said bitcoin's digital nature made the cryptocurrency "more easily laundered," thus helping North Korea store hard cash to fuel its weapons programme.

Mr Chan said: "Cryptocurrencies are more easily laundered. And also the North Koreans are increasingly using third-party service systems to do the mining for them and the reason for doing that is because it’s an expensive process.

"North Koreans have been linked to attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges. We understand they do mining of their own but North Korea denies all such reports.

"However, Pyongyang needs high currency to fund its nuclear weapons development programme, allegedly."

But cybersecurity expert Luke McNamara said his company had noticed hackers previously linked to espionage activities for the North Korean government take a sudden interest in bitcoin early in the year.