The blockchain data analytics company Chainalysis released its mid-year cryptocurrency crime report on Tuesday under the title “Illicit Activity Falls With the Rest of Market, with Some Notable Exceptions.”
The company stated, “In comparison to respectable quantities, which are down 36% year over year, illicit volumes are down just 15%.
To be more precise, “Total scam profit for 2022 currently rests at $1.6 billion, and 65% lower than what it was a mid 2021, and this reduction looks tied to declining pricing across different currencies,” Chainalysis observed.
Additionally, the organization noted that “the total number of individual transfers to schemes so far in 2022 is the lowest it’s been in the last four years.”
Chainalysis explanation
Based on such figures, it appears that fewer people than ever are victims of bitcoin fraud. The decline in asset prices may be a contributing factor in this situation, making bitcoin frauds less alluring to potential victims.
The company observed that none of the frauds discovered in 2022 came close to Plustoken or Finiko. In 2019, the former company made almost $2 billion from victims; in contrast, the later company made over $1.5 billion.
Darknet market revenue has also decreased dramatically this year and is already 43 percent lower than it was through the first seven months of 2021.
Hacking and the use of stolen money will both see an increase in illegal activities in 2022. According to the blockchain analytics company:
The value of cryptocurrency taken through July 2022 through service hacks was $1.9 billion, compared to little under $1.2 billion at about the same point in 2021.
“This pattern doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon, as evidenced by the $190 million hack of the cross-chain bridge Nomad and the $5 million hack of numerous Solana wallets that happened in the first week of August,” according to Chainalysis.
“This is largely due to the startling increase in money being stolen from defi (decentralized finance) protocols, which started in 2021.”
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