Cross-chain crime increases by 300% to $ 21 billion in 2025

According to a new report by Elliptic, a prominent digital risk management company, criminal criminal activities rose to over $ 21 billion. This number represents a significant triple increase of $ 7 billion in 2023, making the criminals exploiting decentralized financial instruments in order to move and hide stolen assets.

Elliptics 2025 Cross-Chain Crime report describes that criminals are increasingly using decentralized exchange, wide and chains bridges and token swap services to cover the origins of funds associated with fraud, hacks and sanctioned companies. The data show a strong increase in chain chopping tactics, in which bad actors quickly move funds over several blockchains to avoid detection. The report shows that 33% of the cryptocritical investigation now contains activities on more than three blockchains, 27% over five and one of five over ten or more.

One of the most remarkable incidents this year was the Bybit hack, the greatest crypto robbery, in which stolen funds were quickly washed on multi-storey paths. Elliptisch played a crucial role in pursuing assets and continues to support global studies against the violation.

The report attributes around 12% of the $ 21 billion to North Korean activities, which are mainly powered by the Lazarus Group. These state -supported hackers were in the foreground of the use of advanced veiling techniques of the chain chain, which made the restoration of stolen assets increasingly complex. Your tactics now comprises Swift -Münzmünz in several chains and the use of anonymization services to pay funds. Elliptic also marked $ 300 million of cross-chain transfers that come from Iranian crypto services that are currently under sanctions by the US sectors.

In Russia, the Garantex Exchange confiscated in March 2025 with the help of the data from Elliptic and the US Secret Service Cross-Chain tools to hide fund currents and to avoid international restrictions. The company's results reflect on how sanctioned nations use the Blockchain infrastructure to avoid traditional financial obstacles. Apart from these cases, Elliptic identified a growing number of fraud fraud that work in real time and use cross chain strategic strategies to make money to siphonem money before the authorities can react.

Platforms such as CBEX, which stole almost $ 1 billion to the users and at the same time appear legitimate, relyed on these multi-chain laundry to stay in operation and cheat investors. The Memecoin boom 2024–2025 created a fertile soil for fraud. One example was the collapse of the $ Wazia token, in which 100 million US dollars swam in a carpet, just a few days after the tweeted Argentine President Javier Milei. The confirmation made prices increase before the anonymous developers drained and disappeared liquidity.

Elliptics leading crypto threat researcher, Dr. Arda Akartuna, emphasized that criminals apply more complex methods, but do not go beyond range. “Our ability to track transactions automatically over 55 blockchains and over 300 bridge routes can follow the money, no matter how it moves,” he said.