The list of what? Different ways in which the North Korean economy legitimately functions?
However "weird" you or the Washington Post think running a restaurant and remitting money back home is (or are they fronts for money laundering? the story can't seem to decide), or a country sending its workers abroad (look up the population of the UAE sometime), or operating a factory (?), all of those things are legitimate, legal and commonplace around the world, and in no way analogous to a Bitcoin ransomware attempt.
> The GDP of North Korea is estimated to be about $30 billion [...] It doesn't take much money to move the needle.
The amount made by WannaCry wouldn't even move the needle in the Bitcoin economy, never mind the economy of a nation state. Hell it wouldn't move the needle for some posters to HN.
If North Korea was that interested in acquiring cryptocurrency they could make far more simply running darknet markets or Bitcoin exchanges.
But - no - according to some people it makes far more sense to enact a convoluted and easily killswitched extortion scam with flashing neon arrows pointing straight back at them.
SMH