★ Deployer linked within 3 hops to DPRK/Lazarus
Circle USYC's assessment for RD-F-125 — scored green on the v1.7.0 rubric. The evidence below is the curator's reasoning for this score.
Evidence summary #
No DPRK or Lazarus cluster proximity found at any hop distance. Targeted search across OFAC SDN list, Chainalysis published DPRK reports (March 2026 OFAC IT workers update, April 2023 designations, Axie/Ronin reports), and US Treasury press releases: zero hits for Hashnote, USYC, Circle, Leo Mizuhara, David Shapiro, Alex Walchli, or deployer address 0xb2b98e8672d4aad438f6ffec581cfe6f745496ff. All team members have fully traceable traditional-finance identities (BofA, DRW, Scout Security, Latch, ZeroHash) inconsistent with DPRK implant profiles. Circle is NYSE-listed (CRCL) with full SEC disclosure. No rubric-level F-downgrade applies.
Sources #
- URLCircle Announces Acquisition of Hashnote - Circle PressroomCircle acquisition press release naming Leo Mizuhara, Jeremy Allaire, Don Wilson - all fully verifiable non-DPRK identitiesretrieved 2026-05-16
- Hashnote: Deployer - Etherscan - no DPRK proximityDeployer EOA transaction history - no DPRK-cluster proximate transactions visible; all activity is USYC protocol operationsretrieved 2026-05-16
- OFAC Targets DPRK IT Workers Using Crypto - ChainalysisChainalysis OFAC DPRK IT workers March 2026 report - no Hashnote or Circle entities mentionedretrieved 2026-05-16
Methodology #
Determine whether the deployer address has an on-chain path of ≤3 hops to a Chainalysis/OFAC DPRK-labeled cluster address.
See the full factor methodology and distribution across all protocols →