In October 2025, there was eight times more illicit cryptocurrency activity.
More than $1.7 billion left sanctioned bitcoin wallets.
The volume of cryptocurrencies outgoing from wallets related to illicit activities was, in October 2025, eight times higher than in September, according to data on-chain.
The total flow this month was 3,000 million dollars (USD), while in September it was barely 329 million dollars, according to data from the research firm Blockchain Bureau.
Unlike so far in 2025 and 2024, where the flow prevailed on the Tron network, in October most of it happened in Bitcoin (55.95%) with more than 1.7 billion dollars. This was followed by BNB Chain with $705 million (22.90%) and Ethereum with $608 million (19.75%).
This can be seen in the following graph, which divides the outgoing flow of wallets related to illicit activities by network.
Given the increase in movements of illicit activity in the ecosystem, Blockchain Bureau urged bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency users to avoid contact with addresses sanctioned for money laundering.
Between the movements, four wallets associated with Zhi Chen of the Prince Groupwho was charged with fraud, transferred funds on October 22. This was eight days after the US government reported that it seized 127,271 BTC from this person, as reported by CriptoNoticias.
The amount seized was equivalent at the time to more than $15 billion. This was part of an unprecedented joint US-UK action against a massive Southeast Asian cryptocurrency scam network.