With the Asia-Pacific region being the 4th largest cryptocurrency market in the world, it's no wonder that global blockchain data platform, Chainalysis hit our shores this year. Amongst their data, research and analysis services provided to many clients, they've also commissioned some interesting reports including the 2021 Crypto Crime Report (available here). It certainly makes for some interesting insights that are quite useful for dispelling one of the biggest myths that plagues cryptocurrency advancement, that it's just for criminal activity.
Per the 113 page report which goes into money laundering, ransomware, scams and more, a key highlight is that illicit activity only makes up 0.34% ($10 billion of transaction volume) for the crypto market. This is down from 2.1% in 2019 and the big reason they cite for the decrease is that economic activity tripled in that period. The good outweights the bad!
The report is full of great analysis and charts such as this one showing the breakdown of illicit activity over the last 4 years. Whilst higher in 2020 than 2017 and 2018, the market is quite a lot bigger than it was in those previous periods.
Additionally, they highlight the destination of funds that come from illicit services and Australia is low on that list
Additionally, they break down the buckets of deposit addresses to see how much has been received by each. A lot are in the smaller $0 to $100 bucket quite clearly but there's enough happening in the larger bucket sizses to see total value received add up to the hundreds of millions on the right hand side of this chart.
Whilst there's no denying that illicit activity does occur, it's certainly nowhere near what some people think it is. Here's to more analysis and reports like this lifting the hood on the numbers and sharing their insights!
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