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Cryptocurrency crime reached unprecedented levels in 2025, with illicit addresses receiving at least $154 billion, a 162% surge driven primarily by sanctioned nation-states leveraging digital assets to circumvent financial restrictions, according to a Chainalysis report published on January 8, 2026.
The escalation marks what Chainalysis characterized as crypto crime’s third wave: nation-states moving into the space at scale to evade sanctions, following earlier waves dominated by rogue cybercriminals (2009-2019) and professionalized criminal infrastructure (2020-2024).
🇮🇷 NEED A MISSILE? IRAN WILL SELL YOU ONE FOR BITCOIN
Iran just opened up its weapons shop to anyone with enough digital cash, offering everything from killer drones to warships.
No banks, no questions, just crypto or a trade deal.
There’s even a chatbot to help you pick the… pic.twitter.com/sL3IAp4NNl
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 1, 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) exemplified this shift, moving approximately $1 billion through two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges, TRM Labs revealed in a January 9, 2026, report. Zedcex and Zedxion processed IRGC-linked transactions accounting for roughly 56% of their total volume between 2023 and 2025, peaking at 87% in 2024.
The exchanges conducted transfers almost entirely in Tether’s USDT on Tron, chosen for deep liquidity and low transaction costs. TRM Labs connected exchange wallets to addresses designated by Israeli authorities as IRGC property in September 2025.
Corporate filings link both exchanges to Babak Zanjani, sanctioned by the US and EU in 2013 for laundering billions in oil revenue for the IRGC. His sentence was commuted in April 2024 after repaying approximately $2.1 billion; he was released from prison by December 2024.
Stablecoins now represent 84% of all illicit transaction volume, exploding from just 15% in 2020, while Bitcoin’s share collapsed from roughly 70% to approximately 7%, according to Chainalysis. The reversal reflects stablecoins’ advantages: ease of cross-border transfers, lower volatility, and broader utility.
Sanctioned entities drove the overall surge with a 694% year-over-year jump. Russia emerged as the largest contributor, intensifying after introducing its ruble-backed A7A5 token in February 2025. The stablecoin processed over $93.3 billion in less than a year, following legislation passed in 2024 specifically designed to facilitate sanctions evasion.
“Nation-states have been engaging with cryptocurrency for some time, but the current scale of this involvement is significantly larger,” Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis, told Fortune.
Iran’s proxy networks facilitated over $2 billion in money laundering, illicit oil sales, and weapons procurement during 2025, as per Chainalysis. Organizations including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis increasingly turned to digital assets.
TRM Labs discovered that exchange wallets transferred over $10 million directly to Sa’id Ahmad Muhammad al-Jamal, sanctioned by the US Treasury for operating a smuggling network funding the Houthis. While the North Korean hackers had their most destructive year, stealing $2 billion, the February Bybit exploit accounted for nearly $1.5 billion, making it the largest digital heist in crypto history.
VENEZUELA’S BITCOIN SHADOW RESERVE 🟧
1) The Shadow Reserve
– Intelligence reports allege Venezuela quietly built a $60B+ reserve in Bitcoin and USDT starting in 2018 to evade sanctions. (HUMINT)
2) Gold → Oil → Crypto
– 2018: Venezuela exported 73.2 tons of gold ($2.7B).… pic.twitter.com/eKrwspcacD
— Bitcoin Archive (@BitcoinArchive) January 5, 2026
Venezuela’s economic crisis has driven increased BTC and stablecoin reliance, creating $60B+ reserves. It had shadow fleet vessels transporting sanctioned oil, also carrying Iranian crude, and creating interconnected networks serving Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
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