North Korea has topped the Crypto ranking website, Coincub has produced a report of the world’s most criminal crypto locations.
North Korea leads the list with its army of approximately 7,000 hackers who have funded the DPRK through a series of beneficial cyberattacks. NK has over 15 documented instances of crypto crime, with proceeds conservatively estimated at $1.59 billion.
Also among the top of the list is the United States which is in second place and Russia in third. These countries earn these spots purely on the respective scale of their underground crypto economy and a series of high-profile scams.
The sheer amount of ransomware alone attributed to Russia is what qualifies it for being third on this list. With malware strains like Conti, REvil, Ryuk, and Netwalker to call the country a point of origin. Organized gangs of hackers often enjoy tolerance, if not outright approval from the Kremlin.
The Top 5
The United Kingdom takes fifth place due to the many hacks and scams that have taken place within its jurisdiction. The U.K. is a global hub for crypto fraud as lax corporate regulations allow fraudsters to obfuscate the source and destination of funds. In 2021 alone, 7,118 cases of crypto fraud were reported.
Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, the British Virgin Islands, and Seychelles rounded out the top 10 for crypto crime.
Despite crypto’s reputation for crime, research shows that the crypto economy is relatively law-abiding. According to Coincub CEO Sergiu Hamza, “while crypto fraud reached an all-time high last year it still represents a small part of the total crypto market at 0.15%. In comparison, criminal activity makes up 2-5% of the world’s GDP. It’s clear that crypto transactions are not disproportionately related to illicit activities. Nevertheless, people still need to be vigilant about crypto crime by observing security best practices.”
Also of note for the Caribbean are the British Virgin Islands (9th place) with over $103,332,000 in total frauds( 6.93% of its 2021 GDP), Saint Kitts and Nevis (19th) with over $687,000 in total frauds, Belize (36th) with over $342,000 in total frauds and Panama (39th) with over $51,000 in total frauds.
The ranking was evaluated against a dataset of over 244 instances of criminal activity connected to cryptocurrency to create this ranking.
Coincub, the crypto ranking website, produces quarterly rankings for individual countries and continents, including top mining countries and the most advantageous locations for trading and tax purposes. The crypto crime ranking category has been added for Q2 and will form part of quarterly rankings going forward.
Crypto crime is still a pressing issue today, as seen by a recent $100 million hack on blockchain bridge Horizon.
For a full breakdown of the report, visit Coincub’s worldwide crypto crime ranking Report.
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