Curricula fraud loss

Despite the prosperity of the cryptocurrency market exceeding $ 10.6 trillion in the volume of transactions, the illegal encryption activity witnessed a remarkable decrease in 2024. It is estimated at 45 billion dollars, as the volume of illegal transactions decreased by 24 %.

These are the results of the latest report on Crypto Labs, which showed that ransom attacks have risen to record their highest levels last year, with North Korean Internet criminals theft of approximately $ 800 million and financial fraud that generates billions of dollars.

Illegal encryption volume: moving goal

For example, the unlawful 2023 volume was initially linked to $ 34.8 billion, but it was later modified to $ 58.7 billion, an amazing review of 69 %. If 2024 follows the same style, the final number may exceed $ 75 billion, which enhances the difficulty of following the entire crime of encryption in the actual time.

Tron remains the favorite Blockchain of the illegal actors, facilitating 58 % of criminal encryption flows. However, it has also seen a sharp decrease, as illegal transactions decreased by $ 6 billion.

Source: TRM LABS

A large part of this reduction arose from targeted enforcement efforts, including freezing more than $ 130 million of illegal assets through the T3 Financial Crime Unit. Tron’s association with approved entities played a role, as nearly half of her illegal transactions were linked to the money listed in the blacklist.

The approved entities remained the largest contributor to the illegal encryption flows, although its share has decreased by 33 % to 14.8 billion dollars. The Iranian GARANTEX in Russia and the Iranian Nobetix, which is one of the most prominent encryption exchanges operating under sanctions, formed more than 85 % of these transactions.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies continued to tighten the enforcement of the black list, reaching 86 encrypted currency addresses related to electronic networks, ransom groups, and illegal exchanges.

Despite the increasing interest in privacy encrypted currencies such as Monero, terrorist financing organizations continued an overwhelming majority dependent on Stablecoins in 2024. According to USDT and other stablecoins due to liquidity and ease of transportation.

Source: TRM LABS

Ransomware reaches the highest level ever

Ransomware remained one of the fastest encryption crimes in 2024. The attackers released 5,635 ransom incidents that were generally reported, exceeding 5,223 attacks in 2023.

The encryption and exploits breakthroughs resulted in $ 2.2 billion of stolen money in 2024, an increase of 17 % over the previous year. Defi financing protocols (Defi) remained major goals, with a average penetration volume of $ 14 million. However, no single entity had a more important effect on the theft of encryption from North Korea.

North Korean infiltrators stole nearly $ 800 million, which represents 35 % of all stolen coding boxes. Its operations, known for targeting special keys and seed phrases, outperformed other threat actors in both development and size.

While fraud losses decreased by 40 % on an annual basis to $ 10.7 billion, they still represent a large share of encryption crimes. Frauds formed “swine slaughtering”, where victims are manipulated in fraudulent investments, at least $ 2.5 billion, a decrease of 58 % from 2023.