Tradingplatforms.com has presented an analysis of the global holding of known illicit Bitcoins (BTC). According to the site, the value of known illicit BTCs today stands at 547,833. That figure works out to $21.5B in fiat terms.
The analysis further reveals where these funds reside. The darknet holds a majority of them. Dubious actors have stashed 361k BTC here. Stolen funds keep another 112K coins, while scams and other rackets hold 62K and 12K BTC respectively.
“Unscrupulous actors are looking to cryptos and particularly BTC to mask their nefarious activities,” says Edith Reads of tradingplatforms.com. “They have this erroneous belief that BTC’s P2P function makes their transactions anonymous. What they don’t appreciate, though, is that their transactions are public, and anyone can trace them if they wanted to.”
An Important Metric
It’s possible to observe the flow of these illicit funds because of the blockchain’s transparent nature. The metric is essential as such flows can be worth significant amounts. At the moment, though, they constitute a tiny fraction of the BTC ecosystem.
Tradingplatforms.com analysis further shows the placing of these funds. Placing of illicit funds is the initial stage of money laundering. Ironically, the bad actors prefer crypto exchanges to “clean” their funds. At press time, exchanges had recorded placing of illicit BTC worth over $5M.
