The rebound of the cryptocurrency market in 2023, completed on January 11, 2024 by the listing of the first eleven index funds listed in bitcoins, seems to have been accompanied by a drop in crime involving these financial assets.
The overall value of cryptoassets that have been the subject of illicit transactions has in fact decreased significantly in 2023 to 24.2 billion dollars (22.3 billion euros), or 39% less than in 2022, according to the first estimate from data provider specializing in blockchain analysis Chainalysis published Thursday January 18. It represents 0.34% of all transaction volumes on these markets compared to 0.42% a year earlier, a decline in which the company sees the reflection “the growing maturity of this class of digital assets”.
But there is no question of rejoicing too quickly, she admits in this study on the annual trends of “cryptocrime”, a name which includes, among other things, the theft of assets, online fraud and embezzlement, ransomware attacks ( pirate software which blocks access to the file of the attacked computer network until a ransom is paid) or even the financing of terrorism.
Ransomware revenues on the rise
Its estimate, explains Chainalysis, very probably constitutes the bottom of a range expected to evolve. The 2022 figure, initially estimated at $20.6 billion, has since been revised to $39.6 billion. In the meantime, some of the recipients not initially identified may have been formally linked to sites or organizations subject to sanctions.
The revised amount for 2022 also includes $8.7 billion claimed by investors from FTX, the cryptoasset trading platform that went bankrupt that year. Chainalysis thus draws conclusions from the conviction for fraud of the former boss of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, in November 2023.
The marked drop in the misappropriation of cryptoassets in 2023 does not call into question the underlying trend towards an increase in delinquency in this market: between 2018 and 2023, revenues from “cryptocrime” jumped by 426%.
Chainalysis notes at the same time a marked evolution in the forms of cybercrime: on the one hand a clear reduction in scams (− 29.2%) and embezzlement (− 54.3%), on the other hand an increase in revenues ransomware – all the more worrying as it marks a reversal of trend after the decline in 2022 – and those of the dark Net markets, this “dark” part of the Internet which is only accessible through software specialized.
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