According to CipherTrace, hackers have already stolen $927 million in cryptocurrencies for the first three quarters of 2018. The other staggering statistic is that of all payments made between criminal groups, 97% used unregulated crypto exchanges.
There are two major mishaps that contributed to the large amount of stolen cryptocurrencies. The first one was the $530 million crypto “steal” from Coincheck and the one one was worth $195 million (BitGrail).
The stolen cryptocurrencies in 2017 amounted to 3.5 times less than the amount stolen in the first three quarters of 2018. If the rate is going at this pace, by the end of the year, more than $1 billion worth of digital coins will be gone.
The CipherTrace report shows that financing of criminal activity with cryptocurrencies has spiked since 2009. Criminal activity is anything related to extortion, malware, terrorism etc.
According to the report:
“The total volume of cryptocurrency from criminal sources exchanging hands reached $2.5 billion since 2009.”
The next step in regulating the cryptocurrency sector will be targeted at creating anti-money laundering efforts and laws.