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A new analysis from blockchain analytics company Elliptic says that cross-chain money laundering has become much more common in 2025. These methods moved $21.8 billion in illegal or high-risk cash. This is a huge 211% rise from 2023, when the amount of these kinds of operations was $7 billion.
From DeFi Innovation to a Place Where Money Laundering Happens All Over the World
Cross-chain swaps were first used by skilled traders and decentralized finance (DeFi) users, but now they are the main way that people launder money using cryptocurrencies.
Criminals are no longer just using mixers or single decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms. Instead, they are moving money across various blockchain networks to make it harder for law enforcement to track down.
About 12% of the $21.8 billion, or $2.5 billion, is connected to North Korean hacking gangs, and $300 million comes from Iranian crypto services that have been banned.
Elliptic says that one-third of crypto investigations now entail tracking money over at least three blockchains, 27% across five or more, and 20% across 10 or more. This shows how these schemes are getting more complicated.
Even while DEXs are open and clear on the blockchain, they are often utilized as entry gates for money laundering, especially for assets with low liquidity.
As part of the money laundering process, these are usually traded for well-known stablecoins like USDT or ETH before being sent to other networks.
The paper talks about the May 2025 theft of Cetus, a liquidity provider on the Sui blockchain, in which hackers stole more over $200 million.
The criminals used a DEX to trade USDT for USDC, then moved the money to Ethereum and changed it back to ETH using a DEX aggregator.
They probably did this to avoid being frozen by centralized stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle.
Elliptic also says that many DEXs now let you swap assets directly, which makes it hard to tell the difference between DEXs and cross-chain bridges.
Chain-Hopping: A Popular Method for Crypto Criminals
Structured chain-hopping and multi-hop bridging are two common ways that criminals move money between chains.
When you do structured chain-hopping, you move money over several blockchains at the same time. When you do multi-hop bridging, you move money across different chains one at a time. These procedures used to seem hard, but now they are standard.
In a major case from early 2025, hackers thought to be from North Korea stole $75 million from an exchange and shifted the money from Bitcoin to Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and finally Tron, using both methods to hide their tracks.
It’s scary that these approaches aren’t just used by big groups. In a minor fraud case in the UK worth $200,000, the criminal used 90 different assets on separate blockchains to pay for online gambling.
Coin Swap Services: The New Illegal Currency Exchange
Elliptic’s research also talks about coin exchange services, which are like illegal money changers. You can trade assets across blockchains without having to register or go through Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures on these sites. Darknet users, ransomware operators, and credit card fraudsters enjoy them a lot. Some even offer extreme services like dropping off cash in person or delivering buried riches.
These services handle about 25% of high-risk assets that come from unregulated internet gambling sites, especially in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. This ecosystem also includes things like pig slaughtering and drug trafficking.
Conclusion
Elliptic’s analysis shows that in 2024, illegal crypto transactions were worth $45 billion, or 0.4% of the $10.6 trillion in crypto transactions that happened around the world.
The company says that the trend is likely to continue as more people use blockchain and AI-powered technology make criminals more skilled.
Elliptic says, “Interest from new people goes up during bull runs, and scammers are always ready to take advantage.”
The research makes it clear how hard it is for compliance teams and law enforcement to keep track of complicated cross-chain activity. But companies like Elliptic, Chainalysis, and TRM Forensics are making it easier to follow money across numerous blockchains.
This gives us optimism that we can fight this expanding threat. As the crypto world becomes more connected, the fight between criminals and those who keep an eye on the blockchain gets more intense.
