Overview
- The report estimates at least $14 billion in illicit on-chain flows for 2025 so far, with the total projected to exceed $17 billion as more wallets are identified.
- Impersonation scams rose roughly 1,400% year over year and drove a more than 600% jump in related payments, while the average scam payment climbed 253% to $2,764.
- Operations linked on-chain to AI vendors extracted about $3.2 million per scam versus $719,000 without AI, aided by deepfakes, bulk SMS, and phishing-as-a-service kits.
- Chainalysis details a modular fraud ecosystem, from vendors like Lighthouse that blasted up to 330,000 texts in a day to specialized laundering networks tied to Southeast Asian scam compounds.
- Law enforcement recorded major wins in 2025, including the U.K.’s 61,000 BTC seizure and DOJ actions recovering over $15 billion, yet investigators urge real-time fraud defenses and stronger cross-border coordination.