Elliptic: total value of crypto laundered via decentralized exchanges, bridges, and coin swaps hits $7B; Lazarus Group was the top culprit, laundering $900M+
- Elliptic's new report shows $7 billion was laundered through decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cross-chain bridges and coin swaps.
Context & Ripple Effects
The report extends Elliptic's earlier finding that RenBridge had processed more than $540 million in crime-related funds, shifting the focus from a single bridge to the combined laundering role of DEXs, bridges and coin-swap services.
It also sits within broader evidence that illicit crypto flows had increasingly reached DeFi: 2022 reporting recorded a rise in illicit transfers and record DeFi receipts. Naming Lazarus Group concentrates that broader pattern on a prominent alleged operator.
First-order effects
- The $7 billion estimate makes decentralized exchange, bridge and swap pathways a defined compliance exposure rather than isolated infrastructure incidents.
- Lazarus Group's $900 million-plus attribution gives investigators and service operators a concrete priority for tracing and screening related flows.
Second-order effects
- DEX, bridge and swap operators face stronger pressure to detect cross-service transaction patterns, because laundering can span several products rather than end at one venue.
- The findings reinforce a competitive divide between services that can support transaction monitoring and those whose decentralized design leaves counterparties with less visibility.
Third-order effects
- If multi-service laundering remains persistent, crypto compliance will increasingly be judged at the level of connected transaction routes, not individual platforms.
- That could deepen the crypto sector's concentration of illicit off-ramping around a smaller set of identifiable services, while leaving decentralized routing as a continuing legitimacy challenge.
The trend: Crypto crime monitoring is moving from identifying risky venues to mapping how illicit funds traverse interconnected decentralized infrastructure.