Report: Illegal cryptocurrency addresses received $154 billion in 2025, a 162% increase year-over-year.
PANews reported on January 8th that, according to The Block, a new report from Chainalysis shows that the total value of illicit cryptocurrency addresses received in 2025 reached $154 billion (a conservative estimate), a 162% increase from the revised total of the previous year. This is primarily driven by a surge in activity related to sanctioned entities, including state sanctions circumvention. The illicit share of all cryptocurrency transactions remains below 1%. Chainalysis states that its methodology does not cover non-crypto-native criminal proceeds, such as traditional drug trafficking where payments are made solely through cryptocurrencies, because on-chain data makes it difficult to distinguish such transactions from legitimate activities.
The organization attributed the majority of illicit transactions in 2025 to a few state-sponsored actors, including North Korea, Russia, networks allied with Iran, and a money laundering group in an Asian country. In 2025, North Korean hackers stole $2 billion; Russia's ruble-backed A7A5 stablecoin accounted for a large share of on-chain state-sponsored activities, facilitating over $93.3 billion in transactions in its first year after its launch in February 2025, despite previous US and EU sanctions; Iranian proxy networks facilitated over $2 billion in on-chain activity, involving money laundering, illicit oil sales, and arms procurement. Stablecoins accounted for 84% of all illicit transactions in 2025. Illicit crypto activities rely on full suites of illicit infrastructure service providers, which are used by ransomware, fraud networks, and state-sponsored actors. On-chain crime increasingly overlaps with violence, such as human trafficking and coercive attacks, forcing victims to transfer crypto assets during periods of market activity.
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