The fraction of crypto transaction volumes used for unlawful or fraudulent criminal activity does not represent the expansion of the larger cryptocurrency ecosystem. CipherTrace, a blockchain security startup, released a survey report on June 13 to back up this claim. According to the report, the percentage of fraudsters using crypto as a tool for their actions has decreased significantly from 0.62 to 0.65% in 2020 to 0.1 to 0.15 % in 2021.
Mastercard has recently acquired CipherTrace, a prominent crypto intelligence firm that provides digital asset protection and fraud solutions for some of the world’s major banks, exchanges, and other financial institutions. The acquisition aims to provide integrated services such as AI, cyber, and blockchain technologies to give organisations more transparency in identifying and understanding risks as well as managing regulatory and compliance duties. Mastercard’s digital assets strategy is being advanced, and its real-time payments infrastructure is being differentiated.
As per the CipherTrace report, cryptocurrency activity exploded in 2021, with the market value hitting over $3 trillion in November 2022. The virtual asset ecosystem continues to grow rapidly by 1,456% from January 1, 2019 when the crypto market size value was $135 billion and in March 2022 it increased to $2.1 trillion.
This follows a total payment to ransomware attackers of $590 million in 2021, a figure that is 42% more than the amount reported in the same time period in 2020.
Even though the percentage is small as compared to 2020, the money value is not as there is an increase in criminal activity, which includes:
- There is an increase in Defi hacks and fraud.
- Defi and NFT are potential money laundering schemes.
- Next generation mixing services are being used to hide funds.
The legal and regulatory agencies have been active as 93 % of all IRS (Internal Revenue Service) criminal investigation seizures in 2021, with that $3.5B in cryptocurrency seizures in 2021.
Read more:
French fashion brand Lacoste enters Web3 ecosystem with its Underwater NFT collection
