Anti Money Laundering (AML) is a rising concern in the cryptocurrency market as the mainstream adoption of crypto is ramping up at an exponential pace. A report by CipherTrace revealed that over $3.5 billion worth of BTC was transacted by criminally associated bitcoin addresses. These addresses are controlled by hackers, dark market users, fraudsters, and even ransomware actors. These funds will eventually need to be laundered into the system using the three stages of money laundering, placement, hiding, and integration.
Evidently, a portion of these criminally transacted funds are being laundered into the system. The report further revealed that exchanges in the United States alone have received over $8.4 million worth of BTC directly from criminal addresses and have sent $41.2 million worth of bitcoin directly to criminally associated BTC addresses. Considering the report has only tracked the flagship cryptocurrency asset Bitcoin in the United States the number of funds laundered