84% of illicit crypto transactions used stablecoins

Source

Korea Economic Daily

Summary

It said funds flowing into illicit cryptoasset addresses last year totaled $154 billion (about 220 trillion won), up 162% from a year earlier.
It reported that the share of stablecoins used in overall cryptoasset crime surged from 15% in 2020 to 84% last year.
It said stablecoins are increasingly abused for crimes such as money laundering because they are easy to remit and hard to trace, underscoring the limits of traditional anti-money-laundering (AML) approaches.

Forecast Trend Report by Period

Worth 220 trillion won…up 160% year on year

Easy to remit, hard to trace funds

Cases of stablecoins—whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar and other assets—being abused for crimes such as money laundering, tax evasion and illegal transactions are surging worldwide. An analysis found that 84% of crimes involving cryptoassets last year were conducted via stablecoins.

According to the '2026 Crypto Crime Report' recently released by crypto analytics firm Chainalysis, funds flowing into illicit cryptoasset addresses (wallets) last year reached $154 billion (about 220 trillion won), a 162% jump from a year earlier. Notably, criminal methods are shifting. Whereas Bitcoin was once the primary tool, stablecoins are now used in most cases for money laundering and other illicit activity. The share of stablecoins in overall cryptoasset crime surged from 15% in 2020 to 84% last year.

Given the size of the stablecoin market, some analysts say the problem of 'criminal misuse' has reached a serious level. According to crypto data platform CoinGecko, stablecoins account for just 7.9% of the overall cryptoasset market (as of end-October last year).

Unlike other cryptocurrencies whose prices swing widely, stablecoins are stable because their value is fixed to fiat currencies. They are also easier to remit than cash and harder to trace back to their source, driving more frequent use in crime. Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by market share, uses a permissionless public chain that offers a high degree of anonymity when tracking fund flows, making it difficult to identify users.

As the stablecoin market expands rapidly, critics say traditional anti-money-laundering oversight has hit its limits. Kim Pil-su, a senior researcher at the Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute, said, "In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), the patterns and methods of money laundering are highly likely to become more sophisticated," adding, "Stablecoins move across the world without regard to borders, but most countries' anti-money-laundering (AML) response systems are still implemented only at the level of individual financial institutions."

By Seo Hyung-kyo / Park Jae-won, reporters seogyo@hankyung.com

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