No traces or halt—being a blockchain specialty led to another significant transgression by the crypto masterminds. With cryptocurrency on the rise, Cybercriminals target the crypto market by using chain hopping as a technique to transfer or gain assets through blockchain servers.
The Newest Crypto Scam Exposed.
According to the latest transfer data graph, Elliptic (Blockchain analytics firm) provided, $540M was laundered using Renbridge as a cross-chain server by crypto criminals since 2022. In the past two years, a movement of illegal cryptocurrency by potential hackers was observed, which used cross bridges to make these proceedings untraceable.
Cross-chain bridges quickly transferred funds across different block chain servers without going through a fair exchange. Chain hopping surfaced as a foolproof tool to anonymously transfer billions of funds through blockchains without any record.
Crypto Criminals Use Cross-Chain Bridges for Theft and Ransome Gains
It’s been reported that Renbridge facilitated these transfers from the end of 2020 leading up to the current year 2022. This asset movement got the most traction between April and October 2022. The data revealed that the transfers were mainly between Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It states that nearly 50% of these crypto gains emerged from theft. 28.45% of these gains were Ransom-related, amounting to $153M. The crypto criminals obtained these funds by blackmailing various big organizations with their private information and data, as Russian-linked ransomware gangs used Renbridge.
Stolen Credit card withdrawals, dark web markets, and other sources accounted for the remaining amount. According to the stats, North Korea was responsible for stealing various other laundered crypto funds across Renbridge. Renbridge servers were also used by Conti group to launder $53Million.Conti gang also attacked the Costa Rican Government using these servers.
Crypto-Related Cash Laundering
The government officials are working non-stop to catch hold of all the dark corners of crypto exchanges across blockchain servers. Cross-chain bridges are decentralized and work the best in transferring assets between blockchains without regulation. Federal U.S set new rules to receive and transfer cryptocurrency funds with pertinent information about the provider and immediate crypto transfer into dollars when transferred.
But Hackers and potential cybercriminals are always in tow to get easy money. David Carlisle, The Vice President of the newest Blockchain Analytics Firm, Elliptic, recorded his statement as
“One major question is whether bridges will become subject to regulation since they act a lot like crypto exchanges, which are already regulated,”
Other Blockchain Server Providers Under Scrutiny
Many other cross-chain service providers are under scrutiny by the government to track any illicit transfer of assets. It is feared that due to the anonymous asset transferring feature, many firms might be involved in dark crypto transfers for easy cash gains.
Tornado Cash, another crypto service, was black-listed by the Federal Treasury department on Monday. Their report claimed that Tornado Cash 2019 was responsible for laundering $7 billion in cryptocurrency.
Conclusion
According to reports from the crypto analytics firm, Elliptic, a new crypto scam was exposed. Their graph data showed a crypt laundering of $540 Million by using Renbridge as a cross-chain server by crypto criminals. This data showed that 49.2% of these funds surfaced from theft and 28% from Ransomeware.
The federal government officials are on their toes to analyze all the nooks of crypto servers and reveal illicit exchanges such as allegations on Tornado Cash. Chain hopping has increasingly been used as a tool to transfer large amounts of crypto funds across servers. Because Cross-chain bridges are decentralized, there are no traces of any fun transfers whatsoever. Since the rise of cryptocurrency, cybercriminals have been using this tool to transfer Billions of crypto funds without being regulated.
