2023-10-06 02:00:21
London and New York (ots/PRNewswire) – Cross-chain crime is increasing faster than predicted: $7 billion in illicit or high-risk funds are laundered through cross-chain and cross-asset services.
Elliptic, the world’s leading blockchain analytics solutions company, today released the 2023 edition of the groundbreaking report “The State of Cross-chain Crime.”
The report shows that $7 billion in illicit or high-risk funds were laundered through cross-chain and cross-asset services, with North Korean hackers, the Lazarus Group, responsible for $900 million in cross-chain crime.
In the first edition of this report, published in October 2022, Elliptic found that through July 2022, $4.1 billion in illicit or high-risk funds were laundered through decentralized exchanges, cross-chain bridges and coin exchange services. At the time, the company predicted that figure would rise to $6.5 billion by the end of 2023 and $10.5 billion by 2025.
Using new research methods supported by Elliptic’s holistic blockchain analytics, the report uncovers the true extent of cross-chain crime:
- Through July 2023, $7 billion worth of illicit or high-risk funds were laundered through cross-chain and cross-asset services. $2.7 billion was laundered through cross-chain crime between July 2022 and July 2023.
- Sanctioned and terrorist organizations now hold over 80 different assets on more than 26 blockchains.
- The Lazarus Group is the largest source of all illicit funds laundered through cross-chain bridges and the third largest source of all cross-chain crime, having laundered over $900 million through cross-chain methods.
- Criminals use more complex cross-chain methods – such as derivatives trading and limit orders – to disguise their money laundering activities.
“Over the past decade, Elliptic has helped mitigate risk and bring transparency to blockchains by identifying and tracking illegal activity within the crypto ecosystem,” said Dr. Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at Elliptic. “ With the innovative insights from our holistic blockchain analytics capabilities that we released last year, we have found that cross-chain crime continues to increase as bad actors continue to exploit services such as decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cross-chain bridges and coin exchange services.”
For more information about the report’s findings, please contact the Elliptic team.
press@elliptic.co
Information about Elliptic
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Amanda Abarno
VP, Marketing
press@elliptic.coElliptic is a global leader in cryptocurrency risk management for crypto companies, governments and financial institutions.
Recognized as a WEF technology pioneer, Elliptic is backed by investors including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, SBI Group and Santander Innoventures. The company has assessed the risk of transactions worth trillions of dollars, uncovering activities related to money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and other financial crimes.
Elliptic is headquartered in London and has offices in New York, Singapore and Tokyo. Further information can be found at www.elliptic.co.
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