According to the recent report from the firm Chainalysis, cryptocurrency money laundering experienced explosive growth, reaching the figure of $82 billion during the past year 2025. This financial evolution, led by Chinese-speaking networks, represents an alarming jump compared to the $10 billion initially recorded back in 2020.
This phenomenon is based on an unprecedented professionalization of illicit services, which take advantage of market liquidity to operate on an industrial scale. Consequently, criminal organizations have perfected their obfuscation methods, ensuring that the volume of processed funds multiplied significantly in just five years through specialized channels.
When analyzing the origin of these operations, it stands out that Chinese-language laundering networks now control approximately 20% of known global illicit flows today. These structures, operating with staggering agility, have managed to expand thousands of times faster than any legitimate decentralized finance protocol, consolidating an underground financial infrastructure that systematically challenges international controls and oversight.
The sophisticated architecture behind Asian laundering networks
The criminal ecosystem relies on a diverse network of approximately 1,800 active wallets, where six types of specialized services are diversified to move capital. Among these, “running point” brokers stand out, who facilitate primary access to bank accounts, allowing dirty money to enter the global financial system with an appearance of legitimacy that is difficult for authorities to detect.
Likewise, so-called “Black U” services have gained ground, platforms that trade digital assets linked to criminal activities by applying significant discounts to their real value. In this way, the use of Telegram-based guarantee platforms has allowed for the creation of a reputation market where buyers and sellers of laundering services interact under a highly efficient escrow scheme.
Does the growth of these networks represent a threat to market stability?
Nonetheless, the impact of these activities transcends the digital realm, linking directly to transnational scams and cybercrime rings operating off the blockchain. This operational resilience demonstrates that, despite the sanctions imposed, the organized crime industry adapts quickly to regulatory pressures, migrating its operations to alternative channels as soon as an interruption is detected in its main platforms.
Finally, the consolidation of this asset laundering technology poses a supervisory challenge for investors and government entities worldwide. The future of the sector will depend on the response capacity to these global networks, which have transformed cryptocurrency money laundering into a professionalized, resilient service capable of evading traditional financial surveillance mechanisms.
