Illicit crypto volume reached an all-time high of USD 158 billion in 2025, up nearly 145% from 2024.
Despite the increase in absolute illicit volume, illicit volume as a proportion of overall crypto volume fell in 2025, from 1.3% in 2024 to 1.2% in 2025.
While illicit activity represented a small share of overall on-chain volume, illicit entities captured 2.7% of available crypto liquidity in 2025, according to a new metric released by TRM that frames risk relative to deployable capital rather than raw transaction volume.
Sanctions-related activity in 2025 was overwhelmingly driven by Russia-linked flows, largely due to the rapid growth of the ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5, which processed more than USD 72 billion in total…
