According to the most recent report from Chainalysis, the bulk of the illicit funding is still focused on crypto-collecting frauds like never before. In comparison, Chainalysis in its 2019 report said that around $10.9 billion (about Rs 81,945 crore) was laundered in the crypto space. The record-keeping company had also announced that the figures have crossed $30 billion (approximately Rs 2,25,570 crore) in a span of five years.
The company has also said that these figures are very less compared to the laundering taking place in the physical sector. The firm further states that illegal activities like smuggling of liquor result in laundering of around $2 trillion (about Rs 1,50,36,360 crore) every year. However, the report also noted that this figure is an estimate, since physical laundering makes cash easier to monitor, but the opposite is true in crypto.
The Chainalysis report also speaks of a decline in money laundering through centralized exchanges, which accounts for just 47 percent of the entire figure. This is the first time since 2018 that this figure has come down so much. However, the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector rose from 2% to 17% in 2020, after which it is increasingly being used for laundering.
Chainalysis further explained that this shows that high-end hackers like the Lazarus Group have now moved to DeFi, while smaller scammers are still using centralized exchanges. Altcoins top the list by asset, with around 68 percent of laundered funds sent to various wallets.<!–
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