Financial safety

DEA: Criminal Activities Account for Just 10 Percent of Bitcoin Transactions

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long argued that it’s unfair to characterize bitcoin as a haven for drug dealers and money launderers. Now, they have data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to back up that claim.

Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, DEA special agent Lilita Infante said that criminal activity accounts for approximately 10 percent of on-chain bitcoin transactions, down from a high of 90 percent in 2013 prior to the U.S. government’s takedown of dark web marketplace Silk Road.

That’s not to say that fewer criminals are using bitcoin to fund their illicit activities. Infante said that the volume of criminal transactions has “grown tremendously” but that the ratio has rapidly shrunk as cryptocurrency has matured into a more mainstream asset class. Illicit activity, she said, has been replaced by another use case: speculation.

“The volume has grown tremendously, the amount of transactions and the dollar value has grown tremendously over the years in criminal activity, but the ratio has decreased,” Infante told the publication. “The majority of transactions are used for price speculation.’’