North Korean Dissidents Sell Ethereum-Based Post-Liberation Visas

[Leonardo]

North Korean political dissident group Cheollima Civil Defence (CCD) is selling Ethereum-based (ETH) visas for entering the country once it is supposedly liberated.

The CCD’s website advertises a “Limited issuance of 200,000 anonymous blockchain visas to visit Free Joseon (previously North Korea) upon liberation” Free Joseon is seemingly a reference to the Joseon Kingdom, a five century long dynasty that was succeeded by the Korean Empire. The visas are emitted in the form of non-fungible ERC-721 tokens dubbed G-VISA on the Ethereum blockchain. The price, for the first one thousand visas, will be 1 ETH.

Per the announcement, the issuance will begin on Sunday, March 24 and all the visas will expire on March 1, 2029, and can only be used once for a stay of 45 days at most. One person can purchase unlimited visas and enter the country multiple times, while being subject to relevant customs and port of entry restrictions.

The website also explains that “each G-VISA is assigned an incrementing ID Number in the order it was purchased,” so no specific number can be requested or changed. CCD states that while ideally the visas could be used to visit a free North Korea:

“Ownership of one or more G-VISAs should be considered a contribution to the movement and should not be used for speculative or fiduciary purposes.”

While discouraging speculation, CCD also points out that G-VISAs may be available on ERC-721 marketplaces such as OpenSea, and recommends to look there for preferred issuance IDs. Notably, while the issuance of the visas will supposedly start on March 24, there are already 5 G-VISAs listed on OpenSea and the page dedicated to the token on Ethereum block explorer Etherscan reveals that already 7 of them exist.

The Bitcoin (BTC) address dedicated to donations has received over 14 BTC so far, ($56,000 at press time) while the Ethereum donation address only received one-hundredth of an ETH at press time.

Cable news network CNN attributed a recent attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, to CCD. Armed assailants reportedly restrained staff members before stealing a variety of items and fleeing the premises.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, North Korea has allegedly amassed $670 million in fiat and cryptocurrencies by conducting hacking attacks.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/north-korean-dissidents-sell-ethereum-based-post-liberation-visas