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Dissident Group Cheollima Civil Defense Selling Blockchain Visas to North Korea

By Shannon Wilson | March 22, 2019
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North Korean political dissident group Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) claims to be selling “limited issuance of 200,000 anonymous blockchain visas” to visit the country, which it will rename as “Free Joseon” upon North Korea’s “liberation” from Kim family rule.

Joseon is a reference to the last and longest running imperial dynasty in historical Korea. It began in the 14th century and lasted about 500 years before being succeeded in 1897 by the Korean Empire – the last unified and independent Korean state.

The visa is Ethereum-based in the form of a non-fungible ERC-721 token dubbed G-VISA. It will supposedly allow its holder a one-time entry into Free Joseon for up to 45 days, and is valid till March 1, 2029. It is priced at 1ETH for the first 1,000 visas, with further donations “gratefully accepted” by CCD.

Issuance is slated to begin on March 24 at 9pm local time (or 12 noon UTC). CCD claims on its website that visas can be bought through major crypto exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, Gemini, Coinbase, Poloniex, Bitfinex, and South Korea’s own Bithumb and UPbit. There is no limit to the number of G-VISAs an individual can purchase.

CCD clarified that the visas are not meant to be any form of traditional investment. Rather, “ownership of one or more C should be considered a contribution to the movement and should not be used for speculative or fiduciary purposes.”

Each G-VISA will bear a unique, permanent, incremental ID number, and sold sequentially. In this manner, specific choice of serial number for a G-VISA cannot be requested, although some quantity might be loosely available through marketplaces like OpenSea.

Though visa issuance has not yet begun, OpenSea already has five G-VISAs available there, while Etherscan lists seven in existence. So far, G-VISA’s Bitcoin address has received 14 BTC ($56,000), while Ethereum donations only managed 1/100 of an ETH.

CCD is said to be responsible for a raid on a North Korean embassy in Madrid, Spain, last month where staff members were restrained and items stolen.

The group first caught international attention in 2017 when it claimed credit for evacuating Kim Han Sol, son of Kim Jong Nam, after his father’s high profile assassination by nerve gas in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Kim Jong Nam was the elder brother of current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and widely touted to have opposed him.

CCD has otherwise shrouded itself in secrecy although some observers credit it for being the first organized outfit to demonstrate opposition to the ruling Kim family in decades.

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