CipherTrace: “Since the beginning of 2020, cryptocurrencies worth $ 1.36 billion have been stolen”

According to the CipherTrace report, over the five months of 2020, the total amount of stolen crypto assets reached $ 1.36 billion. At the same time, the volume of dirty cryptocurrencies on the exchanges decreased.

CipherTrace analyzed internationalcryptocurrency exchanges for transactions with illegally obtained digital assets. The company found that Finnish cryptocurrency exchanges are in first place for receiving dirty bitcoins. 12.01% of BTC arriving there are of illegal origin, with 99% coming from the LocalBitcoins P2P platform. There are no other major cryptocurrency trading platforms in Finland.

The second place is occupied by Russian platforms - 5.23% of all funds received by them were previously used on the dark web or obtained as a result of hacker and ransomware attacks.This is followed by English exchanges, whose rate of receiving "dirty" crypto assets isAt the same time, the share of illegally obtained cryptocurrencies on German, Japanese and American exchanges is less than 0.1%.

In 2019, the volume of digital assets receivedby criminal means, halved on exchanges compared to 2018. Last year, the amount of assets received on exchanges from illegal sources amounted to only 0.17%. Over the past three years, the number of such digital assets on cryptocurrency sites has decreased significantly. This is due to the stricter requirements for KYC / AML procedures and the implementation of the Fifth European Union Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5).

However, CipherTrace reported that over the pastfive months, the number of fraudulent schemes and hacker attacks to steal cryptocurrencies has increased. To date, the volume of crypto assets stolen in 2020 is $ 1.36 billion, compared with $ 4.5 billion for the entire 2019.

According to analysts, an increase in this indicatorNot only the coronavirus crisis contributed, but also the Wotoken cryptocurrency pyramid in China. The project promised investors fabulous profits by using non-existent algorithmic software for trading. As it turned out, Wotoken was associated with the creators of the PlusToken cryptocurrency wallet, who were accused of stealing $ 3 billion of client assets. As for the Wotoken project, its organizers appropriated digital assets of more than 715 thousand victims worth more than $ 1 billion.

In January, CipherTrace along with severalUniversities introduced the free Defenders League curriculum to investigate cryptocurrency fraud cases. And in April, CipherTrace launched the Armada service to filter banking information in order to search for potentially risky transactions.

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