In recent years, new trends and opportunities in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain are actively influencing the development of the times, and the wave of innovative technology is surging forward. However, in a period full of changes, emerging things are always accompanied by challenges, and the high incidence and concealment of virtual asset crimes have also aroused widespread concern in society.
Not long ago, the Chengdu Public Security Bureau announced the cracking process of a major underground money house case. The criminal gang used the virtual asset USDT to illegally provide foreign exchange trading services, involving a total amount of 13.8 billion yuan, seriously endangering the country's foreign exchange security and financial security. CCTV also reported this year that the Beijing police cracked a series of virtual asset cases involving more than 2 billion yuan, involving 15 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. The criminal methods in this case are concealed and diverse, taking advantage of the anonymity and cross-border nature of virtual assets, from dark web transactions to illegal foreign exchange trading, which is complicated.
It can be seen from many high-value cases at home and abroad that new types of crimes using virtual assets are becoming increasingly rampant, causing serious economic losses and security threats to individuals, companies and even countries.
The trend of virtual asset crime is becoming clearer
According to data released by OKLink Research Institute, the global economic losses caused by virtual asset crimes have shown a clear upward trend. The amount of losses in 2017 was US$4.9 billion, and by 2022, this figure had surged to US$39.6 billion, an increase of 800% in five years.
It is understood that the four most common forms of virtual asset crimes are money laundering, fraud, pyramid schemes and gambling. Among them, 54.72% of virtual asset crimes are related to money laundering. In 2022 alone, more than 7.33 billion US dollars of virtual assets were suspected of money laundering activities worldwide. But money laundering is fundamentally a downstream crime and cannot exist independently of the upstream crimes it serves. The upstream crimes served by virtual asset money laundering crimes are obviously concentrated, and about 90% are pyramid scheme fraud and gambling cases. Among them, virtual asset fraud, pyramid schemes and gambling are more targeted at individual investors, and because of the professional methods of committing crimes and the concealment of criminal activities, ordinary investors often find it difficult to find problems.
Image: Distribution of virtual asset crime types
Xiao Sa, senior partner of Beijing Dacheng Law Firm, said that the most difficult issue in handling virtual asset-related cases in China is evidence collection. When an individual user's virtual assets are stolen, the funds may be quickly transferred through cross-chain, coin mixers, etc. At this time, professional companies or tools are needed to help track and collect electronic evidence so that subsequent legal analysis can proceed smoothly.
Various sectors promote new trends in digital asset security
In order to cope with the challenges brought by virtual asset crimes, all sectors of society are also actively exploring new paths for on-chain data security and personal asset security governance. While strengthening supervision, public security, procuratorial and judicial departments encourage enterprises to strengthen technology research and development and application. At the same time, the government also strengthens cooperation with the international community to jointly combat transnational virtual asset crimes.
On the enterprise side, more and more companies are beginning to pay attention to data security and privacy protection. Domestic Web3 chain data service providers represented by OKLink are also gradually iterating their product businesses and continuously strengthening the ability to handle structured data on the chain. Jiang Zhaosheng, a senior researcher at OKLink Research Institute, explained that chain data tools can serve various roles in the industry. In addition to being able to quickly conduct integrated analysis of addresses and transactions and intelligently track the capital links involved in the case during case analysis, it can effectively help with situational awareness and intelligent analysis when individuals come into contact with virtual assets.
With the continuous iteration of the forms and means of virtual asset crimes, OKLink has made positive progress in blockchain data analysis technology, blockchain electronic data forensics technology, cross-chain bridge and mixer data tracking technology, and smart contract auditing technology.
Take blockchain data analysis technology as an example. The on-chain data analysis related to virtual asset crimes currently provided by OKLink focuses more on dimensions such as asset flow penetration, address relationship network, transaction risk monitoring and early warning. It can analyze virtual asset transaction records, identify suspicious transactions and address information, and then achieve multi-level penetration and trend analysis of suspicious transactions and addresses through data mining and cluster analysis. At the same time, it uses machine learning, deep learning and other technologies to improve the accuracy and analyzability of analysis, thereby improving the efficiency and success rate of blockchain transaction and address analysis and tracking.
Source: OKLink Research Institute "White Paper on Global Virtual Currency Crime Situation and Security Governance"
In addition, all sectors of society are also stepping up publicity and education efforts to raise public awareness of virtual asset crimes and prevent them. The arrival of the National Anti-Fraud Publicity Day once again sounded the alarm, reminding society to strengthen supervision, technological innovation and international cooperation to jointly respond to the challenges brought by virtual asset crimes and ensure the stability and security of the global financial order.