As Wall Street ramps up its campaign to sell bitcoin funds to the public, a new report reveals just how far the original cryptocurrency has already been displaced by thousands of newer rivals in the field where it was arguably most influential —financing crime.
Bitcoin’s share of “illicit cryptocurrency activity” has collapsed by an astonishing 80% in seven years, from 97% to just 19%, according to an analysis by crypto fraud investigators TRM Labs. In 2016, it says, “two thirds of crypto hack volume was on bitcoin.”
Last year? Just 3%.
Instead criminals have shifted their online financing to a gigantic, sophisticated and global network of alternative cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, TRM Labs says. There is now an entire crypto-based shadow banking system ready and able to serve people who launch ransomware attacks on hospitals, public utilities and private businesses, film and sell movies of children being raped, trade and exploit human slaves, sell life-destroying drugs, finance terrorism and extortion, defraud individuals out of their savings, offer to commit murder for hire, help pariah regimes evade sanctions, and the like.
Criminals are gravitating in particular to newer cryptocurrencies that offer better anonymity than bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.02%, it says. “While bitcoin was the exclusive currency for terrorist financing in 2016, by 2022 it was all but replaced by assets on the TRON blockchain, with 92%,” it adds. The so-called stablecoin Tether USDTUSD, -0.00 was the crypto of choice for terrorists raising money, it says. Meanwhile Ethereum ETHUSD, +0.16%, the second biggest cryptocurrency, accounted for 68% of crypto hack volume last year.
A bewildering array of techniques –– such as “chain-hopping,” “mixers,” “bridges,” and “coin-johns” –– are used to launder the proceeds, getting it into the system, moving it around so authorities can’t track it, and then getting it back out.
Industry website Coinmarketcap.com says there are currently 26,000 cryptocurrencies in existence, traded on nearly 650 different exchanges worldwide.
TRM cited Monero, Zcash and Dash as examples of newer cryptos with “enhanced privacy and anonymity features compared to standard cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,” which could make them more attractive to criminals.
“The shift from bitcoin to other, more anonymous cryptocurrencies for illicit activities reflects the adaptive nature of cybercriminals,” explains Jonathan Merry, CEO of crypto news site BanklessTimes. He adds: “As authorities become more adept at tracing Bitcoin transactions, those engaging in illegal activities seek out new avenues that offer greater anonymity.”
The scene in the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royale, where a money launderer has to travel into the jungle to collect suitcases full of cash from a new client, now looks as quaint and out of date as a black and white movie.
There has even grown up a sophisticated criminal industry that makes money advising others on how to launder money, reports TRM. The one place where bitcoin remains a major part of the cybercrime network is in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it says.
Some in the industry pushed back.
Ernesto Contreras, head of business development for Dash Core Group—one of the organizations that works for the Dash network — says that Dash isn’t anonymous or private and isn’t popular with criminals. “As a literal fork of bitcoin, all Dash transactions are completely transparent,” he tells MarketWatch. “All inputs, outputs, addresses, and amounts are recorded on each and every transaction and viewable — by anyone — on its public blockchain.” He adds that “fiat currency,” meaning cash, is still more popular with criminals than crypto.
Jack Gavigan, executive director of the Zcash Foundation, meanwhile said a study by RAND last year found “no evidence of widespread illicit usage of Zcash, and that Zcash has only a minor presence on the dark web.”
Significantly all this has defied the so-called “crypto-winter,” the term used by stale bitcoin bulls to describe the collapse in cryptocurrency prices since 2021. Even though crypto values fell by as much as two thirds from peak to trough, “the collapse in cryptocurrency prices since 2021 had no meaningful impact on the dollar value of crypto-related crime in 2022,” reports TRM Labs. Billions of dollars continue to be stolen and transferred illegally, it reports. TRM was able to identify at least $ 9 billion stolen through fraud, pyramid and Ponzi schemes and laundered through cryptocurrencies. The FBI reckons the value of investment fraud involving cryptocurrencies nearly tripled from 2021 to 2022.
The latest report raises questions again about how far government regulations can stop the international financing of crime. After 9/11 there was a massive worldwide crackdown on money laundering, terrorist financing, and unregulated offshore banking sectors. But the eruption of the crypto system in the past 15 years seems to have reversed the process, and then some.
TRM’s analyst also poses more questions about the ultimate investment value of bitcoin itself. Bulls of the digital currency have always had to fight off the accusations that it was good for little other than money laundering. But the ease with which it can be replaced by rivals once again raises the question of why it can be said to have any scarcity value.