When North Korea announced a crypto conference in 2018, Canadian journalist Ethan Lou leaped in the chance to determine exactly what the country’s crypto scene appeared as if. He experienced many surprises, including being introduced like a presenter to some North Korean audience.
Based on Lou, he visited with eight other unsuspecting participants who desired to simply attend the crypto conference. However, once the plane arrived and also the conference began, they recognized that they are being announced towards the audience as foreign pros who travelled completely to North Korea to educate them about crypto.
While Lou didn’t accept present, he stated that the majority of the others made the decision to provide improvised talks. However, the Canadian journalist felt that there wasn’t any significant exchange of knowledge inside the conference:
“There were only eight people, but there have been like maybe 60 Korean people. These were essentially the crowd so we didn’t have any significant interaction together.”
One of the other activities that began the audience is when one of these got his laptop confiscated since it had images of his girlfriend. Its Northern Border Koreans classified the images as pornography and held to the laptop until they departed.
The foreign crypto “experts” also experienced a few of the expected safety measures. You his laptop confiscated since it had images of his girlfriend. Its Northern Border Koreans classified the images as pornography and held to the laptop until they departed.
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Lou also met Virgil Griffith, alone who had been a real presenter for that event. Griffith described how Americans need permission using their government when likely to North Korea. “Before Virgil continued this trip, he requested his government whether he may go. The federal government told him no. He told us he made the decision to visit anyway,” Lou pointed out.
While Griffith thought that he was doing his country a big favor, he eventually got arrested and met using the Fbi. This brought to some trial where Griffith pled guilty and it was given six . 5 years imprisonment.