Chainalysis further added that 47% of laundered crypto went to decentralized exchanges and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms. DeFi applications accounted for about $900 million worth of crypto money laundering in 2021. The figure represents a 1,964% year-over-year increase.
Chainalysis 2022 Crypto Crime Report
Kim Grauer, head of research at Chanalysis said in an interview that blockchains are cybercriminals’ favorite playing ground since DeFi protocols and their smart contracts which govern the network facilitates the task for them.
“A lot of the code that is writing these protocols is public and open-sourced,” she told Insider. “So anyone can go over them and look for bugs in the code that they can then exploit.”
How cybercriminals use DeFi To cover their tracks
By analyzing the Spartan Protocol hack — which resulted in hackers stealing over $30 million sparta tokens, fraudsters then converted the tokens into Ethereum and Bitcoin composites. Hackers then moved the cryptos from the hacked blockchain to the Bitcoin blockchain.
