In 2021, the equivalent of 14 billion dollars passed through addresses related to illegal activities, compared to 7.8 billion in 2020, estimated, the analysis firm Chainalysis.
But according to him, illegal transactions represent only 0.15% of the total use of cryptocurrencies.
Scams alone account for nearly $7.8 billion (about €7 billion).
One of the techniques is called "rug pulling".
Explanation: investors buy a new cryptocurrency. This immediately drives up its price. Once the price of the currency is at its highest, its scam creators resell en masse, causing the price to plummet before disappearing.
That's what happened recently with a cryptocurrency called Squidcoin in reference to the South Korean series Squid Game.
The fight against these illegal transactions is making progress.
In June, U.S. authorities were able to directly recover the equivalent of $2.3 million in bitcoins out of the $4.4 million that the oil company Colonial Pipeline had paid in ransom to hackers.
Source : RFI.fr