JAKARTA - A recent report from Chainalysis has revealed that 8.6 billion US dollars was laundered through cryptocurrencies in 2021. This marks a 25% increase from that case since 2020, but is still far below the record high in 2019.
That year the value of 10.9 billion US dollars was laundered through cryptocurrencies. Since 2017, Chainalysis estimates that a total of $33.4 billion in crypto has been laundered.
Chainalysis shows $33.4 billion in crypto laundered since 2017 pales in comparison to the estimated $2 trillion in fiat laundered annually from offline crimes such as drug trafficking.
However, a reliable assessment of the amount of fiat laundered is more difficult to determine than crypto due to the use of untraceable cash in offline crime.
“The biggest difference between fiat and cryptocurrency-based money laundering is that, due to the transparency inherent in blockchain, we can more easily track how criminals move cryptocurrencies between wallets and services in their attempts to convert their funds into cash,” said the report quoted by the report. Cointelegraph.
According to the cybersecurity analytics provider, the laundered crypto value stems from “crypto-genuine crimes” where “profits are almost always earned in cryptocurrencies rather than fiat currencies.”
For the first time since 2018, centralized exchanges (CEX) accounted for less than half (47%) of laundered value. This signals a potential change in cybercriminal behavior. The DeFi protocol saw their utility for dark addresses increase by almost 2,000% from a 2% share in 2020 to 17% in 2021.
Hackers, like the notorious North Korean who stole around $400 million, are very fond of DeFi while scammers tend to prefer CEX, which Chainalysis associates with "lack of sophistication".
Chainalysis said, “Mining pools, high-risk exchanges, and mixers also saw a substantial increase in the value received from illicit addresses as well.”
Of funds laundered in 2021, a greater proportion will appear in the top five money laundering services in 2021 (58%) than in 2020 (54%). However, the overall concentration of money laundering decreased in 2021 as 583 addresses received deposits worth at least US$1 million while in 2020, 270 of those addresses were in use.
By assets, altcoins saw the largest amount of concentration as 68% of those laundered went to the 20 largest deposit addresses used for illicit activities. Ethereum (ETH) is next with 63%, stablecoins at 57%, and Bitcoin (BTC) is by far the least concentrated with only 19% pointing to the top address.
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