Report: Illegal cryptocurrency addresses received $154 billion in 2025, a 162% increase year-over-year.

A new Chainalysis report shows that the total value of illicit cryptocurrency addresses received in 2025 reached $154 billion (a conservative estimate), a 162% increase from the revised total of the previous year. This growth was primarily driven by a surge in activity related to sanctioned entities, including state-sanction circumvention. The illicit share of all cryptocurrency transactions remains below 1%. Chainalysis states that its methodology does not cover non-crypto-native criminal proceeds, such as traditional drug trafficking where payments are made solely through crypto means, as on-chain data makes it difficult to distinguish such transactions from legitimate activities.