Chainalysis Report: Majority of Crypto Whales are Criminals

According to the Chainalysis 2022 crypto crime report, criminals account for 3.7 percent of crypto whales. This comes as the blockchain analytics firm notes that criminal activity has increased in tandem with market growth over the last year.

According to the latest Chainalysis report, there are approximately 4,068 criminal whales, accounting for 3.7 percent of all crypto whales. According to the report, these criminals have approximately $25 billion in crypto assets. According to the report, Chainalysis has identified 4,068 criminal whales with over $25 billion in cryptocurrency. Criminal whales account for 3.7% of all cryptocurrency whales.

In their report, Chainalysis revealed their method for identifying these criminal whales. Only private crypto addresses with over $1 million in holdings and more than 10% of their holdings obtained from illicit sources were placed in this category, according to the firm.

The report claims that 1,361 of these addresses received 90 percent to 100 percent of their holdings from known criminal addresses. A breakdown of the sources of funds received by criminal whales revealed that the Darknet market was the primary source of funds, accounting for 37.7 percent, followed by crypto scams (32.4 percent), and stolen funds, fraud shops, and ransomware attacks accounting for the remainder. Ransomware attacks accounted for only 1.9 percent of the total, making them the smallest source on the list.

Chainalysis was able to use timezones to try to give strong estimates of the whales’ longitudinal location using data from 768 of these whales. According to the firm, the majority of the 768 criminal whales’ activities could have originated in countries such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

According to Chainalysis, illicit crypto transactions accounted for only 0.15 percent of all crypto transactions in 2021. According to the company, the share of cryptocurrency transaction volume accounted for by illegal activity has never been lower. This was stated despite the fact that illicit crypto transactions were at their peak in terms of volume. However, the firm admits that the sheer volume of these activities is still a source of concern, posing a risk to innocent individuals and the crypto space as regulations become unfavorable.

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