Virgil Griffith, who is based in Singapore, launched
projects in 2018 to provide services to individuals in North Korea by
developing and financing cryptocurrency structures, including cryptocurrency
mining, according to the Southern District Court of New York.
A ruling will be announced in January 2022.
Griffith, who faces a 20-year prison sentence, worked with
others to provide cryptocurrency services and help North Korea evade sanctions,
the court said.
He was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in
November 2019.
Griffith, 38, had attended a conference on blockchain and
virtual currencies in Pyongyang in April that year, where he spoke about how to
use both technologies "to evade sanctions," the US Justice Department
said.
Doing so violated US Treasury bans on "exporting any
goods, services, or technology" to North Korea, put in place in response
to the country's nuclear weapons program.
After the conference, Griffith "began formulating plans
to facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrency between the DPRK and South Korea,
despite knowing that assisting with such an exchange would violate
sanctions," the Justice Department said, using the North's official name.
The department said he also announced plans to renounce his
US citizenship, aiming to "purchase" citizenship in another country.
Called a "cult hacker" in a New York Times profile
11 years ago, Griffith has a doctorate in theoretical neuroscience from the
California Institute of Technology.
Four years ago he joined Ethereum, a Singapore-based company developing a secure blockchain-based global platform for business and finance use, and promoting its own cryptocurrency of the same name.