The “Next Frontier” in Cryptocurrency Money Laundering Is Cross-Chain Bridges and DEXs
According to Elliptics’ research, illicit bitcoin is often laundered on Uniswap and 1inch.
Elliptic is a corporation focused on crypto compliance and blockchain analytics. They just revealed data that shows how fraudsters are able to get around previously insurmountable obstacles.
Elliptic scholars Eray Arda Akartuna and Thibaud Madelin released a study on October 4. It was about the current state of transnational criminal activity. In this study, researchers looked at the “next frontier of crypto laundering.” The research concludes that technology advances like bridges facilitate the free movement of capital across crypto assets.
Cross-chain bridges and currency swaps have been used by cybercriminals since 2020. They use it to hide at least $4 billion in illegal profits from trading cryptocurrencies.
In all, the value of cryptocurrencies exchanged on decentralized exchanges was close to $1.2 billion. About a third of the total amount of bitcoin was taken.
More than half of the illegal money uncovered by the inquiry was directly exchanged using Uniswap and Curve, with 1-inch aggregator protocol coming in at a close third. All of this was uncovered by the study.
Users of coin exchange services may freely trade coins inside and across networks. Approximately $1.2 billion has been laundered with the use of these services.
Anonymous Online Frauds
The fact that “many” are advertised on Russian underground message boards solely frequented by criminals was brought to the notice of the audience.
Indications are equivocal that banned organizations are contemplating using these tools. They use these tools for the purposes of committing cyberattacks and laundering illicit funds.
According to a report published in June, two of the biggest threats to virtual assets are “chain hopping” and cross-chain bridges. A multinational group called the Financial Action Task Force has been working to stop the flow of dirty cash and the financing of terrorists. According to their assessment, these are two of the biggest threats they foresee.
The Ren bridge is a prime location for laundering cryptocurrency due to the flow of over $540 million in illegal funds via it in the last several years.
The findings suggest that people “looking to launder the profits of theft” have “found Ren to be particularly enticing.”
One month ago, researchers from Stanford University presented a solution to the issue of cryptographic asset theft. The ERC-20R token standard is voluntary and provides a window of time within which a transaction may be undone.
