Chainalysis: ‚only 0.40 per cent of cryptos are used for illegal purposes‘

Chainalysis, a company that analyses the use of cryptocurrencies, has published a report on how cryptos were used in 2020 and what percentage is exploited for illegal activities.

Often, those outside the industry who want to discredit it claim that Crypto Bank scam is only used by criminals, but this is just one of thousands of applications of crypto, just as it is with cash.

Illegal crypto transactions

The Chainalysis report points out that only 0.40 per cent, or $9 billion in volume terms, were used by criminals, so it is certainly not a majority.

As the chart shows, the percentage has dropped a lot compared to 2019, although this number has also changed due to the fact that volumes in general have increased.

Or perhaps it could be that criminals are starting to realise that cryptos like Bitcoin are not really anonymous and that sooner or later they can be tracked down, as has often been the case in the past.

This 0.40% is mostly made up of transactions from scam projects such as Plus Token ($2 billion out of 9) and the dark web market.

Ransomware and Covid-19

What has also increased a lot in 2020 compared to the previous year is ransomware, with a growth rate of 311%. This is also due to the growth of smart working, which has highlighted the gaps in cyber security on computers used at home.

But that’s not all, as in 2020 we’ve seen several ransomware attacks on the Italian city of Rieti or the University of Maastricht.

Fortunately, other unspeakable crimes are practically non-existent percentages in the crypto world. In fact, as you can see in the graph, the other percentages are mostly made up of stolen funds, which happens in hacker attacks on centralised platforms such as exchanges and wallets.