Crime related to cryptocurrency transaction volumes have spiked once again for the second time, “hitting an all-time high of $20.1 billion,” in 2022 compared to 2021’s $14 billion, a new report by Chainalysis revealed.
The figure, however, does not include non-crypto native crime, wherein an illegal event occurs and its payment is made in cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency-related crime
This comes as new crypto scams continue to be discovered, and 44 percent of the past year’s unlawful activities came from sanctioned entities. Funds received by sanctioned entity Garantex accounts for much of 2022’s illicit transaction activity, the report said.
Transaction volumes fell across all of the other, more conventional categories of cryptocurrency-related crime, with the exception of stolen funds, which rose 7 percent year-over-year, the report highlighted, specifying market downturn as the reason.
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“In general, less money in crypto overall tends to correlate with less money associated with crypto crime. Overall, the share of all cryptocurrency activity associated with illicit activity has risen for the first time since 2019, from 0.12 percent in 2021 to 0.24 percent in 2022,” the report said.
However, while illicit transaction volume grew slightly, the total transaction volume fell “with the onset of the bear market,” the report notes.
Despite this rise in illicit digital currency activity, the overall volume is less than 1 percent and “crime as a share of all crypto activity is still trending downwards,” the report reads.
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