Crypto Crime, Compliance, and Collaboration: Binance Shares Insights at Cyberport Blockchain Security Summit 2025
Main Takeaways
At the recent Cyberport Blockchain Security Summit 2025 hosted in Hong Kong, Binance’s Nils Andersen-Röed shared key crime trends and AML insights from the frontlines of crypto compliance and investigations.
As crypto adoption intensifies, so does the sophistication of criminal tactics – from cross-chain laundering to AI-powered scams.
To stay ahead, exchanges, law enforcement, and regulators must work together and share intelligence across borders.
In a digital world where cybercrimes can reach global scale, regulators and industry leaders gathered at Cyberport in Hong Kong to assess the 2025 state of crypto-related crime and the ongoing battle to counteract it.
Representing Binance was Nils Andersen-Röed, our Global Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, who took the stage to share key findings from Binance’s compliance and investigations teams. These insights painted a picture of a maturing crypto ecosystem, one where innovation, regulation, and security are converging to make the space safer for users worldwide. In this blog, we’ll break down the key crime trends discussed – and how the industry is responding.
Crossing the Adoption Chasm
Before diving into crime trends, Andersen-Röed painted a broader picture of where the crypto industry stands today. He referenced the concept of “crossing the chasm” – the challenging transition from early adopters to the early majority. Andersen-Röed highlighted that 2024 marked a pivotal moment for crypto, as it made this crucial leap.
This shift occurred thanks to regulatory momentum in the U.S., deepening institutional engagement, and increasing government and corporate interest in cryptocurrency.
Yet, as Andersen-Röed noted, “criminals obviously also saw this,” prompting more and more bad actors to enter the space alongside legitimate players. With greater reach comes greater risk – akin to opening the gates of a high-speed racetrack to Sunday drivers. Many of these new entrants aren’t equipped for the pace, the pitfalls, or the predators waiting in their blind spots.
(Ab)use of Crypto
The misuse of cryptocurrency has evolved far beyond early darknet transactions and small-scale scams. As Andersen-Röed explained, criminal operations today are far more organized, global, and technologically advanced – leveraging crypto not just for fraud, but across a wide spectrum of illicit activity.
For example, criminals frequently route stolen funds through mixing services and other privacy-enhancing tools to obscure transaction trails. From there, they may attempt to cash out via high-risk exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) brokers, or even accounts they’ve managed to open on legitimate, compliant platforms.
The head of Binance’s FIU unit pointed to the rise of large-scale scam call center operations in Southeast Asia, where crypto is routinely used to move defrauded funds. These scam networks often operate across borders and have, in some cases, been linked to human trafficking rings – with individuals forced into labor under false pretenses, then exploited to carry out fraud.
Ransomware attacks, meanwhile, are becoming more aggressive and better funded. Cybercriminals are targeting larger entities and demanding higher sums, with many recent cases involving ransom payments exceeding $1 million.
These developments underscore how crypto, while transformative, is being co-opted by increasingly strategic and well-funded adversaries.
How Exchanges Are Fighting Back
To combat the growing sophistication of crypto-related crimes, exchanges like Binance have significantly enhanced their compliance infrastructure. Andersen-Röed presented Binance’s compliance controls as a representative model of what major regulated exchanges are doing today.
At the foundation of this framework is Know Your Customer (KYC) – a set of protocols ensuring that only verified individuals are allowed to transact. This robust identity verification process plays a crucial role in reducing anonymity-based risks, helping to confirm that users are who they claim to be.
Building on that, Binance has implemented advanced screening against global sanctions lists. Our tools cross-reference user information with hundreds of databases around the world, including those tracking sanctioned individuals and politically exposed persons (PEPs). This screening not only helps flag high-risk users before they can engage in illicit activity but also allows Binance to proactively block users from sanctioned regions, ensuring compliance with international regulations and reducing exposure to geopolitical risk.
Complementing these checks is Binance’s real-time transaction monitoring system, which uses machine learning to analyze activity on the platform as it happens. Suspicious behaviors, such as abnormal transfer patterns or links to illicit wallets, are flagged immediately, allowing for swift intervention and investigation.
Finally, Andersen-Röed underscored the importance of collaboration with law enforcement. Binance routinely files suspicious activity reports (SARs) and works with authorities around the world to ensure illegal behavior is not only detected, but properly reported and addressed.
Implemented together, these tools form a multi-layered compliance approach that enables Binance and other exchanges to detect, respond to, and prevent illicit activity at scale, safeguarding the crypto space as it continues to mature.
Putting Crypto Crime in Context
Despite the high-profile headlines often surrounding crypto crime, illicit transactions make up only a small fraction of the overall crypto activity.
Andersen-Röed emphasized this point, drawing on data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. According to the data, illicit transactions have consistently accounted for less than 1% of total crypto volumes. In comparison, the United Nations estimates that between 2% and 5% of global GDP – around $2 trillion annually – is laundered through the traditional financial system.
The FIU head further highlighted how the very nature of blockchain technology makes it easier to trace illicit activity than traditional fiat transactions. The transparency and traceability of blockchain allow for more effective tracking of bad actors, which is a major advantage over more opaque traditional systems.
Additionally, he noted that despite the significant rise in crypto users over the past few years, the volume of illicit activity has not spiked proportionally. This, according to Andersen-Röed, suggests that compliance efforts and regulatory advancements are proving effective, helping to curb illegal activity as the crypto ecosystem continues to grow.
The Threat Landscape in 2025
Looking ahead, Andersen-Röed flagged several emerging threats that demand close attention from the crypto industry. As adoption expands, so too does the sophistication of criminal tactics.
Bad actors are growing more agile in obscuring the origin of funds. They increasingly rely on mixers, cross-chain bridges, and decentralized protocols to ‘wash’ transactions, while automation via smart contracts allows them to execute laundering strategies at scale. Some are even shifting to EVM-compatible blockchains with limited attribution tools, further complicating efforts to trace illicit activity.
Cross-chain laundering, in particular, poses a significant challenge. By moving assets across multiple blockchains, often in quick succession, criminals can sidestep detection systems that weren’t designed for such fluid environments. Andersen-Röed emphasized that this evolving complexity calls for smarter compliance tools and stronger collaboration between industry players, regulators, and enforcement agencies.
One particularly alarming development is the rise of AI-powered scams. Andersen-Röed noted that generative AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for cybercrime. From deepfake videos of company executives to highly targeted, automated phishing bots, these tools enable criminals to launch convincing and large-scale attacks with minimal effort.
To address these emerging threats, Andersen-Röed stressed that fighting financial crime in the digital age requires a united front across the crypto industry, traditional finance, and governments. Only through this collective approach will the industry be able to effectively combat the evolving risks and ensure a safer crypto ecosystem for all.
Final Thoughts
“The future of cryptocurrency is bright, but only if we ensure that security, transparency, and integrity remain at the forefront of its adoption.”
Crypto has come a long way: from niche online forums to the halls of global finance. But with growth comes responsibility. As the industry matures, so too must its defenses. Cyberport 2025 served as a reminder: compliance isn't just about checking boxes – it’s about protecting people, preserving trust, and shaping the kind of ecosystem we want to build.