Criminals more reliant on cross-chain bridges than ever after mixer crackdowns

Cybercriminals 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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