The report by Chainalysis reveals a very shocking fact about the exchanges. The money, almost $2.8 billion, has been transferred through laundering using the platform of crypto trading sites. The researchers have witnessed the laundered amount being increased from $1.7 billion- recorded in 2018.

The year 2019 was a very crucial year for cryptocurrency adoption and awareness on a large scale. But over the flip, crypto scams also got a trigger that pumped the looted money, in the scams, up to $4.30 billion.

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To some extent, all exchanges are involved in this but some are more engaged in the activity than others. For example, Binance, the largest one by volume, and Huobi made the part by more than 50%: Binance shared the part by 27.5% while Huobi makes 24.7%.

OTC Brokers are Responsible

In the report, they are not solely blaming the crypto exchange for illicit transactions but to the Over the Counter (OTC) brokers. These OTC brokers facilitate in the process of money laundering- as OTC trades are directly done between the sellers and buyers without exploiting the site platform via brokers.

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The report also puts the fact on the screen that blackmailing is also surging with the time as it has been increased four times as compared to 2018. Blackmailers scam almost $22.5 million in the last year- 2019.

Crypto and Darknet

The darknet is infamous for utilizing the cryptocurrency in payments. The year, 2019, doubled the figure of crypto usage from 0.04% to 0.08%. Per the report, the cryptocurrency of worth $790 has been transacted over the darknet activities.

Due to engagement in illicit activities, most countries have declared it unlawful to use bitcoin officially. And some are making it more regulated to avoid such type of scams or attacks.

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