Criminal use of crypto spikes after years of steady decline, TRM report says

Criminal actors pulled in $158 billion in digital assets last year, which marked a sudden increase in the value of illicit activity after years of decline, according to a report released by TRM Labs analyzing 2025 data.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

However, the rise in the total still represents an ongoing decline in the percentage of overall crypto activity linked to bad actors (1.2% of volume), the report published Wednesday said, and the bad guys behind it are increasingly professional state-backed operations supported by sophisticated infrastructure.

“We saw roughly four trillion dollars in stablecoin activity in 2025, which tells you how fast the lawful ecosystem is growing,” said Ari Redbord, global head of policy for TRM. “Even with that growth, illicit activity still made