Reported by Elizabeth Howcroft

(Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/crypto-money-laundering-hit-82-billion-2025-researchers-say-2026-01-27/)

Money launderers received at least $82 billion in cryptocurrencies last year, up sharply from $10 billion in 2020, driven in part by fast growth among Chinese-speaking groups, blockchain researchers said on Tuesday.

The fastest-growing ‌category has been Chinese-language money-laundering networks, which emerged during the pandemic and processed almost $40 million worth of crypto per day in 2025, U.S.-based blockchain research company Chainalysis said in a report.

Blockchains create a record of the wallet addresses involved ‌in cryptocurrency transactions, but identifying who is behind the wallets is ​difficult.

However, Chainalysis said it had identified nearly 1,800 active wallets used by Chinese-language money-laundering networks to process $16.1 billion worth of crypto in 2025, and ‍that its numbers were likely an underestimate.