Seoul Has No Sanctions Plan Yet Over Alleged $6B Binance Crypto Heist

South Korea isn't ready to punish Pyongyang over the crypto heist — not yet, anyway. A unification ministry official told reporters in Seoul on Thursday that the government hasn't even started talking about sanctions tied to the alleged Binance theft, saying officials still don't have a full picture of what happened. "Internal sharing and discussion inside the government are needed, but we have not reached that stage," the official added, per Yonhap.

The accusation itself is enormous. The FBI said last week that North Korea was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, the biggest exchange in the world. That figure would make it one of the largest cyber thefts ever pinned on a state actor.

Pyongyang isn't taking it quietly. Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, dismissed the FBI's charge earlier this week as a "grave political provocation" against the North. North Korea has been blamed for digital thefts before and has denied involvement every time.

Sanctions talk is messy for Seoul on other fronts too. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has come out against proposed measures over the Sept. 21 land mine blast inside the Demilitarized Zone, which wounded three South Korean soldiers and left two of them seriously hurt. Opposition parties say that stance is too soft on Pyongyang; Chung counters that sanctions would only provoke the North without achieving anything.

So where does that leave the Binance case? The government's answer right now is essentially: wait and see. Until Seoul finishes its own internal review, no response plan is on the table — meaning the loudest reaction to the alleged heist is still coming from Washington, not Seoul.