Criminals more reliant on cross-chain bridges than ever after mixer crackdowns
1 min readCybercriminals have accelerated their shift away from crypto mixers for cross-chain bridges over the past year, according to blockchain forensics firm Elliptic.
In June and July, nearly all of the crypto stolen was laundered through cross-chain bridges, Elliptic’s data
Elliptic said that criminals may be preferring cross-chain bridges as it is difficult for blockchain forensic firms to track illicit activity across chains in a scalable manner.
“Criminals are aware that legacy blockchain analytics solutions do not have the means to trace illicit blockchain activity across blockchains or tokens in a programmatic or scalable manner.”
In addition, many of these stolen tokens are only exchangeable through cross-chain bridges, while most of these DeFi services do not require identity verification to use, Elliptic explained.
The firm estimates that $4 billion in illicit or high-risk cryptocurrencies have been laundered through cross-chain bridges since 2020.
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