Business Research

249 Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Statistics for 2023

April 22, 2022 | 2 hr 37 min read
  • investing
  • trading
  • mining
  • wallets
  • ALT coins
  • and so on

Bitcoin was literally trading at $0 in 2009 (insane, isn't it!). Since then, a lot has changed, well, except Satoshi Nakamoto revealing himself/herself on camera!

When money is involved numbers become everything. And we have 200+ statistics below to showcase the impact of crypto.

Today, we have compiled 200+ statistics of bitcoin and cryptocurrency and dived deep into the numbers game of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency users' & usage statistics followed by facts about exchange, mining, and money laundering.

01 Bitcoin History and Spending Statistics

Any money is good money as long as its relative value is increasing over the long haul. That's why we are seeing a 300% CAGR in Bitcoin in the last year even though the currency is banned or in some areas restricted too.

Bitcoin has a fascinating history that deserves a Netflix show in itself. Ever since its inception and every bull and bear cycle, Bitcoin has made headlines.

Below is the overall graph of bitcoin statistics history. It shows the real-time fluctuations of the biggest cryptocurrency on the planet.

There are quite a few fascinating behaviors too which we will see from the bitcoin spending statistics. People are using Bitcoin for daily transactions, trading, shopping, and investing.

Let's dive deep into bitcoin history and spending statistics to know more.

In 1983, David Chaum, an American cryptographer created the first untraceable digital currency. It's called ecash which requires software to enable money withdrawal, and a key to be sent to a recipient.

- IEEE

Bitcoin was first introduced by the Pseudo user, named “Satoshi Nakamoto”, in 2009.

- Investopedia

Litecoin, Namecoin, Swiftcoin, and other cryptocurrencies made their debut in 2011.

- Hodder Education

Daily Bitcoin transactions were around 300,000 in 2020.

- Statista

$6 billion of daily online transactions are done via Bitcoin.

- NewsLogical

Between 2012 and March 2021, Bitcoin has gained 254,445%.

- Wikipedia

The Global Bitcoin payment ecosystem market size is forecast to reach $630 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 23.4%.

- NewsLogical

In 2020, digital remittances and cross-border transfers reached almost US$95.96 billion.

- Bitcoin News

In 2013, DogeCoin was launched as a joke to mock the concept of cryptocurrencies.

- AIMultiple

Around 3.7 million Bitcoins are lost forever.

- Decrypt.co

40% BTC in 2020 was sent to private wallets.

- Ciphertrace

In March 2018, the word cryptocurrency was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

- CoinDesk

Compared to traditional remittance methods, crypto remittance is 388 times faster and 127 times cheaper.

- Blockdata

The first Bitcoin real-life purchase was for two pizzas, and it cost 10,000 BTC.

- Investopedia

15.8% of remitters use cryptocurrency to transfer money.

- Bitcoin News

Between Jan 2012 to Jan 2021, Bitcoin saw a 621,931.7% change.

- Investing.com

Bitcoin holds over 81% of the total market of cryptocurrencies.

- CORE

Bitcoin's recent 10-year CAGR is 200%.

- Cointelegraph

Bitcoin's total market capitalization is over $1 trillion.

- NYTimes

2019-2020 proved a fruitful duration for Bitcoin recovery as it strengthened to above $15,000.

- Investopedia

Bitcoin reached an annual growth rate of 302% in 2020.

- Investing.com

Before February 2021, Bitcoin's price increased at least five times, from $10,000 to more than $50,000.

- Knoema

After Tesla's investment, Bitcoin's market capitalization reached an all-time high in February 2021—at $1,072.26 billion.

- CoinMarketCap

The value of global cryptocurrency markets increased by almost 900% in the period March 2020 to February 2021.

- Knoema

02 Bitcoin Usage
Statistics

Bitcoin usage is likely to outnumber many conventional financial institutions of today's age. The need for Bitcoin and its usage is so massive, that carbon emission from Bitcoin mining has already surpassed the carbon emission generated through VISA.

As of January 2021, we've 14,000 Bitcoin ATMs globally.

- Statista

Developing an algorithm that can find crypto market-moving signals costs between $500,000 and $1 million.

- Reuters

Almost 70 million people use blockchain wallets worldwide.

- Statista

Globally, around 18.67 million Bitcoins are in circulation, as of February 2021.

- Blockchain Explorer

As of February 2021, the Bitcoin blockchain is estimated to be over 320 GB in size.

- Statista

A social media post about crypto appears every 2 seconds.

- Statista

As per a CNBC analyst, Tesla made around $1 billion in profit from its Bitcoin investment.

- CNBC

85.77% of Bitcoin community engagement comes from Men as opposed to 14.23% from Women.

- Coin Dance

67% of millennials look to Bitcoin as a safe investment as compared to gold.

- Bitcoin News

Up to 40% of customers paying with crypto are new to the merchant.

- Business Wire

The number of transactions paid with crypto on e-commerce sites grows by 12.5% every year.

- BitPay

Merchants who accept crypto payments saw an average ROI of 327%.

- Businesswire

The Crypto gaming industry has an estimated market revenue of US$321 million in 2020.

- TripleA

APAC region has the highest crypto ownership rate with 22.6 million gamers.

- TripleA

Around 65% of users own Bitcoin.

- Binance

Users who have invested 50-100% of their crypto wealth in Bitcoin are:

- Binance

Over 30% of bitcoin owners allocate their 1-20% holding to Bitcoin.

- Binance

In January 2021, the cryptocurrency market lost $150 billion (17%) in 24 hours when Bitcoin and Ether coin prices dropped.

- AIMultiple

More than 10 crypto billionaires lost $15.5 billion value from their Bitcoin, Gemini, XRP, FTX tokens, and Coinbase stocks, during the May 2021 market crash.

- Cointelegraph

The usage of Bitcoin has increased a lot of opportunities for other cryptocurrencies in the form of wallets, exchanges, trading, and more.

Let's have a brief overview of cryptocurrency user statistics.

03 Cryptocurrency
Users Statistics

Crypto users are in the millions. The people are literally spending millions daily on trading and investing in cryptocurrencies.

As the number of users, companies, organizations, and investors are onboarding cryptocurrencies and believing in their potential, right from the well-known entrepreneurs like Elon Musk to a teenager predicting “Doge to the moon” on Twitter.

Let's have a look at cryptocurrency users statistics to get an idea of how this market segment is utilized by people in general.

There are over 300 million cryptocurrency owners around the world in 2021.

- Triple-A

Crypto is used or owned the most by Nigerians (33%).

- Statista

Top uses for cryptocurrencies are

- Statista

All cryptocurrencies combined accounted for less than 5% of the world's money.

- Investopedia

55% of users consider Crypto as a long-term investment.

- Binance

31% of users consider Crypto as a short-term investment.

- Binance

27% of users are into Crypto because of the FOMO.

- Binance

Among 16,000 cryptocurrency users: 52% consider crypto investing as a means of income, not a hobby 15% say that it is their primary income source.

- Binance

U.S. investors collectively made over $4 billion in 2020 from Bitcoin; more than 3x the next highest country, China.

- Chainalysis

38% invest in crypto because they don't trust the current state of the financial system.

- Binance

There were 5,098 alternative cryptocurrencies in existence aside from Bitcoin.

- Bitcoin News

Americans invest an average of $1,003 in crypto. But the average amount of crypto in American digital wallets is just $191.

- Finder

65% of cryptocurrency users own bitcoin.

- Binance

The cryptocurrency market cap rose 178,471% from $1.5 billion in 2013 to $2.5 trillion in May 2021.

- AIMultiple

Global spending on blockchain solutions is projected to reach $6.6 billion by the end of 2021, and $19 billion by 2024.

- IDC

As of October 2021, the top 5 cryptocurrencies with the largest market cap are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Tether.

- CoinMarketCap

As of 2021, companies like Tesla, Starbucks, AXA, Amazon, Visa, PayPal, Air Baltic, Coca Cola, Expedia, OverStock, Subway, Shopify and many others have started accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment methods.

- AIMultiple

The number of crypto-asset owners rose 190% from 5 million in 2016 to 101 million in Q3 2020.

- University of Cambridge

Tether was the biggest cryptocurrency as of February 22nd, with a $109 billion 24-hour volume.

- Statista

The value of the global cryptocurrency market in 2019 was approximately $792.53 million. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30%, reaching about $5,190.62 million by 2026.

- Facts & Factors, 2021

Almost 100 cryptocurrencies have a market capitalization of at least $100 million.

- CoinMarketCap

According to data collected by CoinMarketCap as of January 2021, the total number of cryptocurrencies worldwide is 7,812. Together, they make up a market capitalization of $324.716 billion.

- CoinMarketCap

More than 5,000 cryptocurrencies in existence have a market capitalization of less than $10 million.

- E-Crypto News

In September 2021, all cryptocurrencies combined reached a market capitalization of US$2,082,830,148,356.

- CoinMarketCap

85% of Bitcoin traders and 88% of Ethereum traders are male.

- BusinessInsider

55% of 18- to 34-year-olds in the US are more likely to purchase Bitcoin in the next five years.

- FinancesOnline

46% of US adults aged 35 to 44 years are willing to invest and 36% of 45 to 54-year-olds have expressed interest in Bitcoin.

- FinancesOnline

33% of organizations worldwide use blockchain technology primarily for managing digital currencies.

- Deloitte

As of December 2020, the 10 largest cryptocurrency wallet apps generated a total of 5,634,548 downloads worldwide.

- Statista

Woah! Those are quite staggering numbers to depict the impact cryptocurrencies have on users. We got to know the demographics of users involved and how they interact with the buyers with maximum usability.

This does not get over just yet. Even more staggering numbers are how these users leverage their portfolios and use cryptocurrencies in their day-to-day lives.

Let's have a look at cryptocurrency usage and adaptation statistics to get a more in-depth review of the subject matter.

04 Cryptocurrency Usage
and Adoption Statistics

Cryptocurrency usage and adoption have risen over the years. The understanding of the technology and overall press and brand coverage has impacted how people consider crypto in general.

In fact, they are even considering crypto's perceived risk as the last barrier to accepting crypto.

This means that people are more likely to trust the technology on which Crypto is built. Let's understand cryptocurrency usage and adoption statistics to get more ideas.

Users have shown 97% confidence in cryptocurrencies.

- Binance

All cryptocurrencies combined are equal to approximately 5% of the world's money.

- Statista

Only 11% of cryptos bought are used for payments.

- Binance

57% of the general population have over 50% of the invested wealth in crypto.

- Binance

3% of the general population regret investing in crypto.

- Binance

39% cryptos are bought and HODL'ed.

- Binance

13% of crypto users have advanced knowledge of the industry and the rest 87% of users are general crypto users.

- Binance

36% of the general public (not-aggressive users) consider Crypto as an additional source of income.

- Binance

48% of the general public (not-aggressive users) consider crypto investing as a hobby.

- Binance

China has the highest percentage of the general population (23%) investing in crypto through borrowed capital.

- Binance

63% of general population used disposable funds to invest in crypto.

- Binance

Ethereum got about 1 million daily transactions in 2020.

- Statista

The average income of crypto users is US$25,000/year.

- Binance

The average age of crypto users is 34 years.

- Binance

Major crypto users (45%) are doing a full-time job.

- Binance

Major crypto users (41%) are are undergrads.

- Binance

Aggressive crypto users are most likely to be entrepreneurs.

- Binance

Power crypto users tend to be based out of Southeast Asia.

- Binance

Aggressive crypto users' average yearly salary is around US$22,000/year; lesser than their counterparts.

- Binance

People who love the tech behind crypto are 25% more likely to showcase confidence in the market.

- Binance

8 out of 10 people consider online channels as the number one source to learn about crypto.

- Binance

Users with an IT background tend to develop a better understanding of crypto.

- Binance

The first ten cryptocurrencies with the highest market cap make up about 88% of the total cryptocurrency market value.

- Finivi

Ecuador and Indonesia ban virtual currencies as a means of payment.

- OECD

11% of users store their cryptos in Hot Wallets.

- Binance

26% of users store their cryptos in Cold Wallets.

- Binance

60% of users store their cryptos in Exchanges.

- Binance

The Crypto market is expected to grow at a CAGR rate of 7.1% from 2021 to 2026.

- MarketsAndMarkets

Around 63% of users leveraged disposable funds to invest in Crypto.

- Binance

People who regretted not buying crypto are 4x to the people who regretted investing in crypto.

- Binance

The cryptocurrency market is expected to be valued at $2.2 billion by 2026.

- MarketsAndMarkets

Only 802 individuals reported Bitcoin-related transactions in 2015.

- NYTimes

In January, daily trading volumes in cryptocurrencies hit $68.3 billion.

- Reuters

Global crypto adoption has taken off in 2020, up 881%, with Vietnam, India, and Pakistan firmly in the lead, according to new data from Chainalysis.

- CNBC

The global crypto market crosses $2 trillion, bitcoin accounts for over 50% of the market cap equalling to 8th largest economy globally.

- CNBC

Daily crypto transactions reached 400,000 mark in January 2021.

- Statista

The number of global crypto users has passed 100 million.

- Crypto.com

Global DeFi (decentralized finance) volume per 24 hours is $9.24 billion, or 8.52% of the total daily cryptomarket volume.

- CoinMarketCap

At the end of July 2021, the cryptocurrency Ethereum would be processed more than 1.1 million times per day. This was more than six times that of the more commonly known rival Bitcoin, which saw only 250,000 daily transactions that month.

- Statista

In 2019, there were 43 million active crypto traders.

- Chappuis Halder

2020 saw 2,329 ICOs launch.

- Statista

The global market size of digital payments surpassed 700 billion transactions in 2020.

- Consultancy.uk

Tesla is the leading member of the S&P 500 to announce the acquisition of Bitcoins.

- BusinessInsider

Less than 150,000 claimed cryptocurrency activity on tax returns in 2019.

- WSJ

30 countries give classification in their jurisdiction on the of crypto-assets while 13 do not.

- OECD

Prepaid/gift cards are the leading industry that accepts BitPay payments at 26.3%, the lowest is Consumer Electronics at 1.74%.

- Statista

24 countries do not take the view that virtual currencies are equivalent to sovereign (fiat) currencies.

- OECD

Global accountancy firms recommend classifying virtual currencies as “intangible assets other than goodwill”.

- OECD

21 countries have imposed either complete or banking ban on cryptocurrencies.

- Wikipedia

Cryptocurrency startups have raised over $20 billion via ICOs since 2017.

- CoinTelegraph

In 2017, China banned ICO, and now considers cryptocurrencies as illegal tenders.

- BBC

The USA categorizes as property for taxation purposes.

- Investopedia

In 2013, the Chinese government banned Bitcoin and in 2017, it banned ICOs and domestic exchanges.

- Forbes

The Payment Services Act acknowledges Bitcoin and other digital currencies as legal property in Japan.

- CNBC

Canada Revenue Agency considers Bitcoin transactions as barter and bitcoin exchanges as a service.

- Government of Canada

Australia categorizes cryptocurrencies as property required to follow the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, and are subject to tax.

- AIMultiple

UK cryptocurrency users have increased by 558% since 2018 when just 3% of the population owned cryptocurrency.

- Finder

Bitcoin processes 4.6 transactions per second.

- Towards Data Science

Africa has the smallest cryptocurrency economy of any region with US$8 billion worth.

- Chainalysis

Slovenia has the highest volume of Google search about “Cryptocurrency”, followed by the Netherlands, Cyprus, Nigeria, and Singapore.

- Google Trends

In June 2021, the El Salvador Congress approved the adoption of Bitcoin as a form of payment within the country.

- Reuters

China controls over 60% of the world's hash rate.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

In 2020, tokens raised0 only $20 million in sales.

- BlockSocial

The East Asia cryptocurrency market is dominated by professional traders, with roughly 90% of all volume transferred by East Asia is attributed to professional-sized (above $10,000 worth of cryptocurrency) transfers.

- Chainalysis

The Middle East accounts for only 15% of the global cryptocurrency market as of June 2020.

- Chainalysis

Satoshi Nakamoto is said to have 900,000 Bitcoins with him.

- Bitslog

Collectively Blockfi and Bitpay offered decentralized financing worth $232 million in 2020.

- Crunchbase

Europe will see blockchain funding of $300 billion by 2022.

- Crunchbase

In 2020, Peru was the leading country in South America when it came to cryptocurrency adoption with 16%.

- The World Economic Forum

By the end of 2030, banks will save $27 billion through blockchain adoption.

- CCN

79% of cryptocurrency owners in the UK have invested in Bitcoin.

- Finder

There were 1,000+ US corporate blockchain projects in the pipelines as of late 2020.

- Forbes

In early 2021, China launched its digital currency's second trial.

- WARC.com

The US has the highest number of token sales ever (48%) in 2020.

- Finivi

As you can see, major investors in Crypto earn $25,000/year and they are either doing a full-time job or an undergrad, which shows that crypto has a major fan following and involvement from retail investors. The above cryptocurrency statistics bring absolute clarity on what type of audience is inclined and how they believe in when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption.

When you are into crypto, you are either storing your portfolios inside a wallet or in exchange. Both options are great.

But do you know there are 300+ crypto exchanges online? Also, the top 20 crypto exchanges manage 80% of global daily trade volume! Let's have a look at all the fascinating cryptocurrency exchange statistics.

05 Crypto
Exchange Statistics

28% of users value security in exchange. 25% value UI/UX and 23% value available trading pairs.

- Binance

There are 305 exchanges listed on CoinMarketCap.

- CoinMarketCap

The first-ever official launch of a bitcoin exchange was reported in 2010.

- Bitcointalk

52% of Bitcoin payments were sent to exchanges in 2020.

- CipherTrace

The top 20 global crypto exchanges account for 80% of global daily trade volume.

- CoinMarketCap

Three of the world's largest exchanges handled 76.99% of the global crypto trading volume in 2020, up from 55.51% in 2019.

- Yahoo Finance

Most users (60%) store their cryptos with Exchanges.

- Binance

The top five exchanges are Binance, Coinbase, Huobi Global, FTX, and Kucoin.

- CoinMarketCap

There are a total of 305 crypto exchanges listed on CoinMarketCap, as of 13-Sep-2021.

- CoinMarketCap

Security is the number one factor behind users' choice for an exchange.

- Binance

In 2021, Coinbase was the first major crypto exchange to go public.

- Fool

Binance is the most popular crypto exchange on the planet.

- CoinMarketCap

Binance supports over 184+ currencies.

- Binance

Binance handled $3.88 billion average daily trading volume in 2020.

- Binance

6.1 million users are transacting through Coinbase each month.

- Coinbase

On January 11, 2021, Coinbase reached $9.56 billion in exchange volume, 57.9% higher than the previous peak.

- The Block

Coinbase has 56 million verified users as of May of 2021.

- Coinbase

In 2020, Binance had $15 billion in 24-hour all-time-high spot trading (up by 5 billion compared to 2019).

- Binance

Coinbase's trading volume of Q1 2021 is US$223 billion.

- Coinbase

Coinbase generated over $1,597 million in revenue in Q1 2021, around a 200% increase from Q4 2020.

- Coinbase

Over 8,000 merchants accept Coinbase. It has also launched its Visa debit card in Europe and the US.

- Businessofapps

Coinbase is available in over 100 countries and has over 115,000 ecosystem partners.

- Businessofapps

People who took loans to invest in crypto are 10x more likely to store their portfolio on exchanges.

- Binance

Certainly, security is paramount when it comes to using a crypto exchange and that's why it holds the utmost importance when it comes to what users value the most when they go to a cryptocurrency exchange.

My favorite exchanges are Binance. If you're hearing about it for the first time, be sure to read my detailed review of Binance.

There are good cryptocurrency exchanges too.

06 Cryptocurrency
Mining Statistics

Cryptocurrency mining is as large and as effective as traditional mining industries like coal and petroleum (it's discussed in the stats below).

The numbers are staggering and unfortunately, crypto mining is also impacting the carbon footprints and emissions to our environment.

Let's check cryptocurrency mining statistics

.

There are only 21 million bitcoins that can be mined in total.

- Investopedia

18,814,637.5 Bitcoins are mined already.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

700,342 Bitcoin blocks are mined.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

1,000,000 unique individuals are mining bitcoins globally.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

As of February 24, 2021, 18.64 million bitcoins have been mined, which leaves 2.36 million yet to be introduced into circulation.

- Investopedia

Bitcoin mining is revenued at $13.5 billion exceeding the anticipated 2021 revenues from gold and silver mining by around 5%.

- Fortune

Sometime in the year 2,140 when the last Bitcoin halving is expected to occur.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

China leads the world in cryptocurrency mining.

- Statista

72% of Bitcoin mining occurs in China.

- Young & the Invested

Global mining income is $20,180,061,869 per year.

- Digiconomist

Miners also earn transaction fees each time they win a new batch of coins, generally ranging between 5% and 10% of the reward and paid in Bitcoin.

- Fortune

Cryptocurrency mining produced US$63 million on a single day in 2021.

- Statista

900+ new bitcoins are mined every day as per 2021.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

49.49% is the estimated ratio of electricity costs to total miner income.

- Digiconomist

The average cost of running a big mining operation is $1,576 per year.

- Entrepreneur

Miners get 6.25 Bitcoin per new block every 10 minutes in 2021.

- BusinessInsider

The average Ether income for validators is 0.0075ETH per day in 2021.

- Coindesk

It takes an average of 10 minutes to verify a Bitcoin transaction.

- Coincenter

Bitcoin mining accounts for around 1% of the world's energy consumption.

- The Balance

The Bitcoin network consumed around 120 gigawatts of energy per second.

- The Balance

The global cryptocurrency mining hardware market is expected to grow over US$2.80 billion between 2020-2024 at the CAGR of 10%.

- Technavio

It takes 10 minutes to mine a Bitcoin. Regardless of how huge a mining network is, it will always take at least 10 minutes.

- The Balance

APAC will be a key market for Cryptocurrency Hardware Market.

- Technavio

Mining cryptocurrency uses more electricity than Argentina or 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year.

- BBC

Bitcoin mining results in 35.95 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, which is higher than the CO2 emission of New Zealand.

- Investopedia

Central processing units cannot mine Bitcoin as quickly as graphic processing units, resulting in greater electricity consumption.

- Cell

Kentucky passed legislation to introduce energy and tax breaks for crypto mining operations.

- Coindesk

Crypto mining in most countries does not go into the accounting books.

Annual electricity costs on Bitcoin mining are $4,466,697,344.

- Digiconomist

Carbon emissions from Bitcoin mining are 15x greater than the mining of the same amount of global gold.

- Visual Capitalist

One Bitcoin transaction's carbon footprint is equivalent to 735,121 Visa transactions or 55,280 hours of watching YouTube.

- Digiconomist

The estimated ratio of electricity costs to total miner income is 54.40%.

- Digiconomist

More than 60% of the Bitcoin network's hash rate depends on non-renewable energy sources.

- Digitconomist

Bitcoin emissions alone could increase the average global temperature above +2°C.

- Nature

Bitcoin accounts for the same amount of carbon emissions as American Airlines's.

- Entrepreneur

A Bitcoin purchase worth $50,000 has a carbon footprint of 270 tons, or 60 internal combustion cars.

- Financial Times

Bitcoin mining consumes 0.5% of all electricity used globally.

- BusinessInsider

Bitcoin mining consumes energy worth 7 times Google's total usage.

- BusinessInsider

If Bitcoin were a country, it would be in the top 30 energy users worldwide.

- Forbes

Imagine being a physical entity that is not physical but still can rank in the top 30 energy users in the world! I mean, it can beat many popular countries of the world in energy consumption.

Building a crypto portfolio and wealth for oneself is good. But if it's done at the cost of the environment, then it needs a solid rethinking of ethical checks.

Speaking of ethics, Bitcoin can result in online money laundering and crime.

Let's go through cryptocurrency money laundering and Bitcoin crime statistics to know more.

07 Cryptocurrency Money
Laundering and Bitcoin
Crime Statistics

Bitcoin transactions are publicly observed yet they are very private and discreet. Nobody can track who is getting the payments and for what purposes.

Therefore, governments and leading organizations are still reluctant towards cryptocurrencies. And they are not wrong! If not validated and managed with proper oversight, it can lead to rising cyber-attacks, hacks, and criminal activities.

Therefore, only El Salvador, on June 9, 2021, became the first country to officially classify Bitcoin as a legal currency. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had proposed to recognize the world's oldest and arguably the most popular cryptocurrency as legal tender.

Let's understand more about Cryptocurrency money laundering and bitcoin crime statistics.

In 2019, crypto frauds were around 160% higher than in 2020.

- Statista

Crypto crimes dropped from $4.5 billion to $1.9 billion in 2020.

- Euronews

50% of attacks in 2020 were DeFi-related hacks and some centralized exchanges.

- The Block

In 2020, 50% of total hacks, which were DeFi hacks, accounted for $129 million.

- CipherTrace

Fraud, theft, and ransomware are three most dominant cryptocurrency crimes.

- CipherTrace

Criminals got $41.2 million worth of Bitcoin from the US exchanges in 2020.

- Fineksus

33% of cross-border Bitcoins were sent to exchanges with demonstrably weak KYC.

- CipherTrace

There was 667 million unique crypto-malware by March 2020.

- Statista

Hackers got $350 million in cryptocurrency from victims in 2020.

- Wall Street Journal

In 2020, $3.5 billion was sent from criminal Bitcoin addresses.

- CFO

A US exchange transferred over $36.7 million to criminals in 2020.

- CipherTrace

The US exchanges sent $41.2 million directly to criminals.

- CipherTrace

98% of the exchange-to-exchange Bitcoin volume was cross-border, with 49% of the total cross-border volume being sent to VASPs with weaker KYCs.

- CipherTrace

On 13th August 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice seized crypto worth $2 million from terrorist groups.

- Buy Bitcoin Worldwide

Hackers sent $8.4 million worth of bitcoin in total to the US exchanges.

- CipherTrace

FBI and German Police seized $30 million in crypto by charging people behind movie2k.to.

- CoinDesk

On 1st October 2020, the US Department of Justice arrested 4 BitMEX executives for violating Bank Secrecy Act by "willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program."

- United States Department of Justice

Police arrested BitGrail boss for being a part of the biggest cyber-financial breach in Italy.

- Reuters

An Irish man did SIM card hacks and stole $2.5 million in Crypto.

- Binance

BitGo settled for $98,830 with the US Treasury over multiple crypto sanctions violations.

- U.S. Department of Treasury

The co-founder of Centra Tech Inc. was in prison for a $25 million crypto scam.

- CoinDesk

On 22nd December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and the co-founder Chris Larsen on the firm's activities.

- SEC.gov

On July 15th, 2020, celebrities' social media accounts were hacked, including accounts of Jeff Bezos, Uber, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Elon Musk. Hackers received 12.86204920 BTC which is around $600,000.

- The Guardian

Unauthorized use of machines to mine cryptocurrency without the owner's knowledge, is a leading cyber threat.

- Malwarebytes

The value of global cryptocurrency theft in 2020 totaled $513 million, a significant increase from 2019's $371 million.

- Chainalysis

Globally, cybercrimes involving cryptocurrencies racked up $1.9 billion in 2020 alone.

- Chainalysis

Relatedly, another report states that 50-80% of initial coin offerings (ICOs) were designed and created as fraudulent activities, but organizers realized their projects wouldn't materialize.

- Bloomberg

In 2020, 73% of the cryptocurrency crimes were fraudulent.

- CipherTrace

100% decentralized finance-related hacks amounted to $129 million.

- Fortune

In 2020, 70% of US Exchanges' outgoing bitcoin volume was sent to unhosted wallets.

- Seeking Alpha

52.1% of incoming BTC volume came from unhosted wallets.

- CipherTrace

$281 million of crypto was stolen in 2020, but ~80% has since been claimed and recovered.

- Statista

4.32% of the total Monero cryptocurrency in circulation comes from crypto-jacking.

- Techjury

In 2020, crypto theft was down by almost 60%.

- Security Magazine

To save yourself from a crypto breach, make sure you enhance the security of your assets by:

Keeping your keys private.

Applying two-factor authentication for all your exchanges and wallets.

Using only legitimate platforms for regular investments and trading.

I believe in DeFi and the mindful usage of crypto.

The technology and the solutions that it brings certainly have the potential to change our lives for good.

Let me know what you think about the statistics shared above.

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