Uncover the Truth: Chainalysis and Crypto Crime Report Exposes Money Laundering 🕵️‍♂️💰

Chainalysis and Crypto Crime Report: Money Laundering Trends

Chainalysis, the on-chain analysis platform, has reported that in 2023, criminals laundered $22.3 billion, a decrease of almost 30% from the previous year. The decline is partly attributed to the overall decrease in both legitimate and illicit crypto transactions. Despite this, there has been a significant decrease of 29.5% in money laundering transactions compared to a 14.9% decrease in the total volume of transactions.

The downward trend in money laundering activities

Overall decrease in both legitimate and illicit crypto transactions
29.5% decrease in money laundering transactions
14.9% decrease in the total volume of transactions

Destination for funds from illicit addresses

Centralized crypto-exchanges remain the main destination with 62%
DeFi protocols’ share is growing, reaching 13% in 2023

Money Laundering: Diversification and New Tactics

Crypto criminals have been diversifying their money laundering activities across multiple services to better conceal them. They also appear to be using new tactics, distributing their activity across multiple addresses belonging to intermediaries or wallets, fiat off-ramping services such as centralized crypto exchanges, and DeFi protocols.

Diversifying money laundering activities

Use of bridges and mixers for money laundering
Criminals distribute their activity across multiple addresses belonging to intermediaries or wallets or fiat off-ramping services (such as centralized crypto exchanges)
New tactics and strategies used by criminals

Growth of “Approval Phishing”

The Chainalysis Report highlights the explosive growth of Approval Phishing in 2023, with scammers stealing $374.6 million through this crypto scam technique. Approval phishing involves tricking users into signing a malicious blockchain transaction, giving scammers approval to spend specific tokens within their wallet and emptying the victim’s address at their discretion.