More Than 4000 Criminal Whales Hold $25B Worth Of Crypto

More than 4000 criminal whales hold about $25 billion worth of crypto as their balances surged from $3 billion to $11 billion because of the market’s rise in 2021 but also because of the heavy increase of hack attacks as we can see further in today’s latest cryptocurrency news today.

The new chainalysis data found that more than 4000 criminal whales hold $25 billion worth of crypto and the company defined criminal whales as private wallets that hold $1 million or more of crypto and recieved 10% or more of the funds thorugh illicit addresses. The data was released by Chainalysis’ upcoming 2022 Crypto Crime report and it follows reports from ransomware, NFT fraud and money laundering, and malware. The two findings in the report took center stage with the rise in crypto balances that are coming from crime and the reasons for the rise.

At the end of 2021, illicit businesses like funds that came from illicit sources came in at $11 billion which is an increase from $2 billion at the end of 2020. the rise was thanks to the surge in crypto values in 2021 but also a surge in the number of hacks that occurred this year which contributed to the number of funds held by the hackers after a hacking event, Kim Grauer who is the head of research at Chainalysis reproted.

Of the $11 billion in illicit balances at the end of 2021, the stolen funds accounted for 93% of $.9.8 billion and the darknet market funds are next at $448 million followed by the scams at $192 million and ransomware at $30 million. The seizure last week of $3.6 billion in BTC from the 2016 Bitfinex hack means that the $11 billion in illicit balances at the end of 2021 is lower right now. Other than the increase in criminal balances and the degree to which the funds featured over and other metrics and Chainalysis found that the criminal balances fluctuated over the year.

They reached an all-time low of $6.6 billion and peaked at $14.8 billion with these figures reiterating the importance of crypto-related investigations that took place quickly. The analytics firm said:

“The fluctuations are a reminder of the importance of speed in cryptocurrency investigations, as criminal funds that have been successfully traced on the blockchain can be liquidated quickly.”

The analysis found that 3.7% of all crypto whales are criminal whales and mostly these whales are sources from the illicit funds that originated on the darknet markets. Some of the other sources of revenue for the criminal whales include scams. Chainalysis approximated the location of these criminal whales by timezone and the analytics company also found that the time zones that contained the most criminal whales covered bigger Russian cities like St.Petersburg and Moscow.