After emerging at the start of the pandemic, Chinese-language money laundering networks (CMLNs) now dominate known crypto money laundering activity, processing an estimated 20% of illicit crypto funds over the past five years. This growth is 7,325 times faster than growth of illicit inflows to centralized exchanges since 2020.
CMLNs processed $16.1 billion in 2025 — approximately $44 million per day across 1,799+ active wallets.
Chainalysis has identified on-chain behavioral fingerprints of six distinct service types within the CMLN ecosystem. Black U and gambling services fragment large transactions into small amounts to evade detection, while over-the-counter (OTC) services consolidate small transactions into large…
