Over $8.6 billion was laundered in 2021 via Cryptocurrency

Blockchain data platform, Chainalysis, estimates that $8.6 billion was laundered via cryptocurrency in 2021. This signifies a 30% increase from 2020. According to the company, this is to be expected as crypto grew exponentially in 2021.

In their most recent report, the company states that cybercriminals dealing with crypto share a common goal. According to the report, these criminals aim to move their “ill-gotten funds to a service where they can be kept safe from the authorities and eventually converted to cash.”

The company then adds that almost 17% of the $8.6 billion was transferred to Decentralized Finance applications. Furthermore, mining pools, high-risk exchanges, and mixers also saw significant growth in value received from illegal addresses.

“It’s more difficult to measure how much fiat currency derived from off-line crime – traditional drug trafficking, for example – is converted into cryptocurrency to be laundered. However, we know anecdotally this is happening,” the company concluded.

Chainalysis notes that theft and scams remain the primary cryptocurrency crimes, as over $750 million were stolen from crypto-wallets.

However, the Darknet market, terrorism financing, and ransomware were among the other leading forms of crimes in 2021. Similar to thieves and scammers, crimes in these sectors sent the majority of their funds to wallets at centralized trading venues.

Source: CryptoPotato