If in the period from 2018 to 2021, criminals preferred to use Bitcoin for illegal transactions, then in 2022 and 2023, stablecoins came out on top, and by a significant margin. Although the share of Bitcoin in illegal transactions began to decline in 2021.
The popularity of stablecoins among cybercriminals came along with the general increase in the activity of these crypto-assets. Currently, the share of stablecoins in illegal transactions is about 60%. Just over 10% of transactions are carried out in ETH, and about 24% in BTC.
Increasingly, stablecoins are being used in sanctioned jurisdictions. The total volume of illegal transactions in cryptocurrencies over the past year is estimated at $24.2 billion. At the same time, in 2023, the income of hackers from hacking crypto projects fell by 54.3%, and the income of fraudsters – by 29.2%.
Chainalysis previously reported that revenue from cryptocurrency phishing between May 2021 and December 2023 amounted to over $1 billion.
Source: Bits
I am an experienced journalist, writer, and editor with a passion for finance and business news. I have been working in the journalism field for over 6 years, covering a variety of topics from finance to technology. As an author at World Stock Market, I specialize in finance business-related topics.
