There was this guy which I think was a BBC staff. He went to North Korea to experience and see things. In the heart of the city condominiums also exist. What struck me is people use stairways as electricity is very unstable and they have bad experiences being stranded in elevators. Well actually it's been known even before that they don't have enough power supply and it includes Pyongyang. It is still possible that they are funding to mine cryptocurrencies but it should be outside Nokor.  

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some mining going on within NK since they basically have no trade beyond China and there are already tons of sanctions against their country which make it incredibly difficult to trade on the larger world stage. Having something with a lot more value than their own currency (and lack of every other currency, aside from some trade goods), such as Bitcoin, is a massive boost to their economy as soon as the first few dollars start to come through the door. My question is where they got the equipment to start mining Bitcoin, or other cryptos, and what their hashing power is. I want to believe it isn't anything huge, but they could have imported some (or lots of) GPUs or ASICs from China.

it doesn't really make any sense to me.

they'd have to spend millions in hard currency to buy the machines, allocate a load of their mediocre power structure to run it and might never get their investment back.

they forge dollars and smuggle crystal meth and heroin in diplomatic bags. that and the insurance fraud they do is way more profitable.

there is big money in it. If north Korea can make big money from this why cannot they benefit from this as their economy is already down because of sanctions so they see bitcoin a big chance to earn notable money