"Crypto-Money Laundering Records 30% Annual Decline"

According to security researchers at Chainalysis, just over $22bn worth of cryptocurrency was laundered in 2023, a 30% drop from the previous year, with nefarious actors switching techniques to stay hidden from investigators.  The researchers claimed that some of the decline in crypto-money laundering could be explained by an overall decrease in crypto-transaction volumes during the same period.  The researchers noted that centralized exchanges remain the main destination for funds sent from illicit addresses, as they have for the past five years.  The researcher said that the share of funds going to DeFi protocols has grown as they have become more popular overall, although their inherent transparency makes them a poor choice for money laundering.  The researchers did see a major change in tactics, which was the increased use of a new mixer, YoMix, following the takedown of Sinbad.  It’s likely that the North Korean Lazarus Group is using this Bitcoin mixer to launder funds, with inflows growing more than five-fold in 2023.  Overall, however, the total value of unlawful funds moving to mixers virtually halved, from $1bn in 2022 to just $504m last year.  The researchers noted that they also saw a major uptick in the use of cross-chain bridges, which allow users to move funds from one blockchain to another.  Overall, bridge protocols received $744m in crypto from illicit addresses in 2023, up from $312m in 2022.

Infosecurity Magazine reports: "Crypto-Money Laundering Records 30% Annual Decline"