Illicit crypto economy surges as nation-states join in the fray
www.darkreading.com/cyber-ris…
Illicit cryptocurrency transactions grew more than 160 per cent in 2025 to total at least $154 billion, driven by sanctioned countries — such as Russia, Iran and North Korea — dramatically increasing their use of digital currency to evade financial blockades. The value of identified illicit blockchain transactions was dominated by Russia, which passed legislation in 2024 to establish ways of skirting sanctions via cryptocurrency and launched its rouble-backed A7A5 token in 2025, according to data released by blockchain-intelligence firm Chainalysis. Overall, at least $93 billion in cryptocurrency transactions came from Russia’s new cryptocurrency token, the main driver behind a nearly sevenfold surge in cryptocurrency volumes by sanctioned entities, the researcher found. Large, transnational money-laundering networks operated by Chinese criminal syndicates throughout Southeast Asia account for the lion’s share of the transactions, says Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence for Chainalysis. “As nation-states, organized criminal groups and other traditional crypto-criminal activity continue to grow in complexity, so too will their on-chain presence,” he says. “However, as both public and private sectors continue to develop more advanced, complex mechanisms to identify and disrupt this activity, there is an opportunity to prevent these flows from reaching their destination.”
