The volume of funds that criminals laundered using cryptocurrencies reached $82 billion last year, according to analysts at Chainalysis. In comparison, in 2020, the volume of money laundered through cryptocurrency was $10 billion.

Criminals have increasingly stopped using centralized cryptocurrency exchanges for money laundering. Such platforms, due to pressure from authorities, have significantly intensified customer verification and security measures and have more frequently frozen suspicious assets, experts explained.

Chinese networks specializing in money laundering came to the forefront. $16 billion (about $44 million daily) out of $82 billion was attributed to Chinese-language platforms. According to analysts, the main driver of growth is the increased accessibility and prevalence of cryptocurrencies.

Chinese-language channels on Telegram and other platforms offer a wide range of illegal services: employing droppers and organizing the work of unofficial over-the-counter trading platforms, as well as using platforms for gambling with the aim of mixing and exchanging cryptocurrencies, Chainalysis specialists reported.

Such schemes have been operating since the coronavirus pandemic, and over the past five years, about 20% of tracked illegal crypto funds have passed through them. Since 2020, the influx of money into identified Chinese-language networks has grown 7325 times faster than into centralized exchanges, analysts said.

Earlier, Gary Cardone, founder of the blockchain company Card1Ventures and co-investor of Node40, suggested that in the future, with the development of blockchain tracking systems, bitcoins that were once involved in illegal activities ('dirty bitcoins') risk being excluded from the global financial system. 'Clean' coins will be more expensive.