Blockchain data company – Chainalysis – claimed that criminal whales make up 3.7% of all cryptocurrency whales. These bad actors collectively own over $25 billion in digital assets.
Almost 4% of Crypto Whales Are Criminals
Cryptocurrencies have many merits, and numerous experts maintain that they represent a financial revolution. However, bitcoin and the altcoins have their critics, too. These claim that drug traffickers, terrorists, and money-launderers employ such assets in their illicit activities.
Pursuant to the aforementioned indictment, New York-based blockchain analytics firm – Chainalysis – has identified 4,068 criminal cryptocurrency whales (3.7% of all) who collectively own over $25 billion in cryptocurrency. digital assets. The company explained that each entity owns over $1 million in crypto.
It is worth noting that most whales received either a relatively small or substantial share of their total balance from illegal addresses. 1,374 got between 10% and 25% of their assets from illegitimate wallets, while 1,361 obtained between 90% and 100%.
The illicit funds received by the criminal whales came from a variety of sources. Darknet (37.7%) ranked first, while scams (32.4%) took second place. Stolen funds, fraud store and ransomware complete the top five positions.
Additionally, Chainalysis analyzed where those criminals are located. It assigned UTC zones to the 768 whales whose wallets have enough activity to make a strong estimate. 2, 3, and 4 are the zones containing the most wrongdoers. Interestingly, this area includes Russia’s biggest cities – Moscow and Saint Petersburg. South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Iran also fall into those time zones.
“The criminal whale investigation represents a significant opportunity for government agencies around the world to continue their streak of successful seizures and bring to justice the biggest beneficiaries of cryptocurrency-based crime,” Chainalysis concluded.
Criminals Laundered Billions Worth of Crypto in 2021
Not long ago, the blockchain analytics company disclosed that the total cryptocurrency value laundered in 2021 was $8.6 billion – 30% more than 2020.
Malicious actors transferred nearly 17% of these assets to decentralized finance applications, up from 2% the previous year.
Chainalysis explained that these numbers account only for funds derived from “cryptocurrency-native crime,” including Darknet market sales or ransomware attacks:
“It is more difficult to measure the amount of fiat currency derived from offline crime – traditional drug trafficking, for example – that is converted into cryptocurrency to be laundered. However, we know this happens anecdotally.
