Crypto crime hit all-time high of $14 billion in 2021: Report

cnbctv18.com:

As digital assets gained popularity across the world, crypto criminals too reaped huge profits. The 2022 Crypto Crime report by Chainalysis shows a jump in scamming revenue.Illicit transactions jumped nearly 80 percent to $14 billion, hitting an all-time high, according to the report.

On the other hand, the overall transaction volume jumped by 567 percent, indicating that legitimate transaction outpaced criminal transactions.Also read: Crypto money laundering rises 30% in 2021: ChainalysisHowever, most criminal activity was reported in the decentralised finance (DeFi) category, including DeFi projects or decentralised finance.DeFi saw the greatest year-over-year growth in illicit activity. In 2020, about $162 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from DeFi platforms.

This was a 335 percent increase in the overall stolen funds from DeFi platforms in 2019. In 2021, that figure jumped 1,330 percent, according to the Chainalysis report.Also read: New York couple arrested in $4.5-billion Bitfinex crypto heist; all you need to knowScamming revenue rose to about $7.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency.

Over $2.8 billion of this came from rug pulls. A rug pull is a new type of scam where developers build a legitimate-looking cryptocurrency project to create investment opportunities and then take investors’ money and disappear.