This report statistically discloses the scale of major types of crypto crimes and clarifies the impact of compliance facilities on the scale of the criminal industry, urging the industry and government to pay attention to the harm caused by crypto crimes. (Background: Trump believes that 'cracking down on crypto crime' harms U.S. competitiveness; orders the Justice Department to suspend cross-border law enforcement, raising concerns in the legal community) (Additional background: SEC chairman requests a budget of $2.4 billion! Opening 170 positions to strengthen the fight against crypto crime) 2024 is a milestone year for the Web3 industry. The market value of crypto and the adoption of industry infrastructure have reached unprecedented heights, while the criminal industry has increasingly utilized crypto infrastructure to optimize its business or create new criminal normalization. This report statistically discloses the scale of major types of crypto crimes and clarifies the impact of compliance facilities on the scale of the criminal industry, urging the industry and government to pay attention to the harm caused by crypto crimes. Due to space constraints, this article only presents part of the report's conclusions and data; you are welcome to download the full version from the Bitrace official website. https://bitrace.io/en/blog The landscape of cryptocurrency crime remains severe. High-risk addresses receiving stablecoins Considering that risky activities mainly occur in Ethereum and Tron networks, Bitrace defines blockchain addresses used by illegal entities to receive, transfer, and store stablecoins (erc20_usdt, erc20_usdc, trc20_usdt, trc20_usdc) in these two networks as high-risk addresses. In the past year of 2024, the total receipt scale of these high-risk addresses reached $64.9 billion, slightly higher than the previous year. The proportion of high-risk activities in the total transaction scale of stablecoins Calculated by transaction volume, this part of high-risk activities accounted for 5.14% of the total stablecoin transaction activities that year, a decrease of 0.80% compared to 2023, but still significantly higher than in 2021 and 2022. Classification of stablecoin receipts by high-risk addresses Calculated by stablecoin type, from 2021 to 2024, USDT in the Tron network accounted for the largest share. However, in 2024, the shares of USDT and USDC in the Ethereum network both increased. The scale of online gambling continues to grow. The amount of stablecoins received by online gambling platforms In 2024, the funding scale of online gambling platforms and the payment platforms providing deposit and withdrawal services reached $21.78 billion, an increase of over 17.50% compared to the scale in 2023. Classification of stablecoin receipts by online gambling platforms Statistics on the types of stablecoins used by online gambling platforms show a significant increase in the share of USDC in 2024, reaching 13.36%, far higher than 5.22% in 2023. This indicates that as the market share of USDC increases, its adoption in the online gambling sector has also greatly improved, even though it is issued and regulated by compliant entities. The scale of black and gray market transactions remains unchanged. The amount of stablecoins received by black and gray market transaction addresses In 2024, business addresses related to black and gray market transactions in the Ethereum and Tron networks received funds exceeding $27.81 billion, slightly higher than in 2023, and the transaction scale of these two years far exceeds that of 2021 and 2022. Closely related to the development of the black and gray industries are cryptocurrency collateral trading platforms, which can almost provide collateral services for all links in the black and gray industry, establishing trust among criminals. The amount of stablecoins received by Haowang collateral The rise of Haowang collateral and its competitors in Southeast Asia has unfolded alongside the gradual popularity of stablecoins in local real economic activities, a trend particularly evident in 2024, when its business scale expanded to $2.64 billion in the fourth quarter. The scale of crypto fraud has sharply increased. The amount of stablecoins received by fraud addresses In 2024, blockchain addresses associated with fraud activities saw an explosive growth in the receipt scale of stablecoins. Compared to 2021-2023, the fund scale that year reached $52.5 billion, exceeding the total of previous years. However, this astonishing growth trend may not be entirely accurate, as the statistical values are limited by the statistical methods of security firms and the increasing level of fraud by illegal entities. For example, as security firms support many new public chains, more criminal incidents are observed, which means that past events may not have been included in the statistics; incidents occurring within centralized institutions and not actively disclosed by victims also cannot be included in the statistics. With improvements in statistical methods and increased case disclosures, this batch of data will further grow in the next year's investigation report. The scale of money laundering begins to shrink. The amount of stablecoins received by money laundering addresses In 2024, blockchain addresses related to money laundering activities received a total of $86.3 billion in stablecoins, slightly lower than in 2023 and on par with 2022. This value may indicate that significant law enforcement activities and regulatory legislation by major policy entities over the past two years have effectively suppressed the money laundering crime situation in the crypto industry. The proportion of stablecoin receipts for money laundering by major centralized exchanges Considering that centralized exchanges have a unique advantage in cashing out funds compared to other entities, making them more favored by money laundering gangs, Bitrace conducted a fund audit on the hot wallet addresses of major centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. The results are similar to those in the fraud section; the overall scale of funds received for money laundering by the platforms is proportional to their business scale, but the proportion of OKX has significantly decreased in recent quarters, possibly as a result of its compliant operations. The on-chain freezing activities of stablecoins have significantly increased. The number of stablecoins frozen by Tether and Circle In 2024, stablecoin issuers actively cooperated with law enforcement, with Tether and Circle freezing stablecoins worth over $1.3 billion in Ethereum and Tron networks, double the freezing scale of the previous three years. The amount of stablecoins received by frozen addresses Statistics on the fund transfer activities of frozen addresses that year showed a transaction scale of $12.9 billion in 2024, which is basically on par with 2023, indicating that on-chain crypto crime activities began to be active years ago, but effective measures against them only started in 2024. * It is worth emphasizing that not all driving factors of frozen addresses are related to cases, and in this statistic, Bitrace has not excluded this part, so the actual scale may be slightly smaller. Trends in sanctions by OFAC and NBCTF The amount of stablecoins received by addresses associated with sanctions by OFAC and NBCTF The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury and the National Bureau for Counter-Terrorism Financing (NBCTF) of Israel are two agencies related to sanctions and anti-terrorism financing, which have collaborated extensively in combating terrorist financing and financial networks related to terrorist organizations (such as Hamas). Statistics on the funds related to blockchain addresses disclosed by these two organizations showed that the overall funding scale reached its peak in 2022 and has decreased year by year since then. Although regulatory measures by government departments have a significant impact on the business of sanctioned entities, they have minimal effect on criminal groups using these infrastructures for illegal activities, as the anonymity and non-requirement characteristics of crypto technology make it difficult for such entities to be sanctioned and highly substitutable...

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