According to Chinalysis, $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were laundered by cybercriminals in 2021.
About 17% of the $8.6 billion laundered went to decentralized financial applications, a sector that facilitates crypto-denominated non-bank financial transactions, an increase of 2% from 2020.
According to Chainalysis, the $8.6 billion came from crypto activities such as darknet sales or ransomware payments.
To cover their tracks, wallets associated with these acts sent less than half of their stolen cryptocurrencies, worth a total of $750 million, to decentralized finance platforms.
In order to successfully launder money in cryptocurrencies, the attackers also used mining pools, high-risk exchanges and mixers. These platforms received a lot of cryptocurrencies obtained from illegal addresses.
In order to prevent the original sender of these illegal funds from being tracked down, mixers combine these illegal funds with others.
The new report shows that cybercriminals have laundered more than $33 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since 2017.