Cybercriminals Laundered $8.6B in Crypto Last Year

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According to research company Chainalysis, in 2021, cybercriminals laundered $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, and compared to 2020, this figure has increased by 25%.

According to the company, in 2019 a record was set for the value of legalized digital assets obtained illegally. Three years ago, cybercriminals laundered $10.9 billion worth of digital assets.

Since 2017, cybercriminals have laundered $33.4 billion in crypto, a figure that pales in comparison to the volume of money laundered in fiat, which reached $2 trillion last year.

In 2021, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges retained the status of the most popular platforms for laundering illegally mined digital assets. Their share represented 47% of the total value of the laundered virtual currencies.

The demand for DeFi among attackers has increased by almost 2,000%. In 2020, decentralized financial services used only 2% of digital assets for legalization, in 2021 – 17%.