Chainalysis releases initial estimates showing that ~$10B worth of crypto transfers in 2020 were related to criminal activity, compared to ~$21.4B in 2019
Chainalysis Blog :
Context & Ripple Effects
This early Chainalysis estimate established a baseline for measuring criminally related crypto activity. Later coverage shows that the firm reported different, narrower measures for 2020—$6.6B in laundering activity and $7.8B sent to criminal addresses—making metric definitions central to comparisons across reports.
The following year brought a reported increase in funds sent to criminal addresses, driven by DeFi scams, while later research tracked illicit activity through new asset types and longer-lived wallet exposure. The arc is less a single declining-or-rising series than an expanding map of how illicit crypto activity is measured.
First-order effects
- Chainalysis gains an initial public reference point for 2020, allowing its later estimates of criminally related crypto activity to be compared against a stated prior-year level.
- The reported decline versus 2019 puts attention on the scope of the metric—transfers related to criminal activity—rather than treating all illicit-crypto measures as interchangeable.
Second-order effects
- Later Chainalysis reports separate funds sent to criminal addresses from laundering flows, so analysts comparing annual figures must distinguish the underlying activity being counted rather than infer a single trend from the totals.
- The subsequent rise in 2021 funds sent to criminal addresses tied to DeFi scams shifts the focus from a year-over-year aggregate toward the platforms and activity types generating illicit flows.
Third-order effects
- Chainalysis's later finding that illicit actors shifted from bitcoin toward stablecoins in 2024 points to monitoring that must follow changing asset usage, not just total transaction values.
- The move from transaction-flow estimates to wallet balances with downstream illicit exposure broadens crypto-risk measurement from discrete transfers to the assets and counterparties connected to them.
The trend: Crypto compliance analytics is evolving from annual estimates of illicit transfers toward differentiated tracking of activity type, asset mix, and wallet exposure.