Chapter 5: The geopolitics of blockchain security

This chapter moves beyond individual hacks and exploits to examine how decentralised security operates at scale, with a focus on the intersection between cryptocurrency security and the geopolitics of blockchain infrastructure. It interrogates physical security, organised crime and state-backed actors – particularly the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group – as they target decentralised finance systems. By tracing how these Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors exploit blockchain technologies for illicit purposes, it reveals the broader implications for global security and policy. In doing so, this chapter shows how geopolitical tensions increasingly manifest through digital infrastructures, shaping the vulnerabilities, responses and power dynamics that characterise the insecurity of blockchain ecosystems today. In doing so, it shows how blockchain systems function as geopolitical battlegrounds where sovereignty, accountability and security are contested and coordinated.