The US company Chainalysis, a market leader in the blockchain forensics and research, issues the annual report on the use of cryptocurrency for illicit purposes. The Chainalysis report stresses the rise in the cryptocurrency related cybercrime in 2021. The reports estimate that around$14 billion is transferred to the digital wallets related to the criminal groups or individuals in 2021. That represents 0.62 per cent of all cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2021. This is an increase from the 7.8 billion in 2020. Even though the growth of legitimate cryptocurrency usage is outpacing the growth of criminal usage, Chainalysis report highlights the significant amount of money being used in illicit activities to be a burden to the wider cryptocurrency adoption.

The experts from the report that will be published in full length in February, outlines ransomware, NFT fraud, and new decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions to be the main source of cryptocurrency-related crimes in 2022. The Chainalysis is a company that provides data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries.