In 2015, cybercriminals, on average, kept crypto assets stolen or obtained through fraudulent schemes for 365 days. In 2020, they withdrawn them in just 28 days, according to a Crystal Blockchain report.
This figure has dropped 13 times thanks to the development of blockchain analytics tools and the emergence of networks of regulated virtual asset service providers (VASP).
The tendency concerns 80% of such assets, the smaller part of which cybercriminals prefer to hold for a long time.
To make it difficult to track funds, attackers use intermediate transactions. In 81% of cases, the chain of transfers between the attacker’s original addresses and the withdrawal site consisted of nine intermediate operations.
Over the past five years, the directions for the withdrawal of stolen assets have also changed.
In 2015, exchanges with user verification were most often used for this – 53% of funds were sent to them. In 2020, the volume in this direction fell to 8%, and the share of trading platforms without verification increased to 61%.
During the study period, the popularity of mixing services increased significantly among attackers – the volume of funds sent to them increased from 3% to 27%.
Crystal has previously confirmed that CoinJoin’s coin mixing technology does make the task of tracking bitcoin transaction paths more difficult.
According to them, in 2020, bitcoins worth $ 1.4 billion were sent to the mixers.
According to a previously published Crystal Blockchain report, over the past nine years, from 2011 to 2020, users have lost $ 7.6 billion as a result of attacks and fraudulent schemes.
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