1 in 5 Cross-Chain Crypto Investigations Involve More Than 10 Blockchains, Elliptic Finds
Crypto criminals are taking increasing pains to evade detection, moving assets between a multitude of blockchain ecosystems in an effort to throw investigators off their trail. A full 20% of complex cross-chain investigations now span more than 10 different blockchains, according to new data from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
Elliptic found that a third of complex cross-chain investigations involved four or more blockchains, and 27% involved more than five.
Jackson Hull, Elliptic's chief technology officer, told CoinDesk that though cross-chain crime has existed as long as there have been multiple blockchains, the volume of cross-chain crime has increased 'pretty dramatically' over the last five years as the cost of switching ecosystems has gone down and the number of options to switch to has gone up.
Though there are plenty of non-criminal reasons why someone would want to move assets between crypto ecosystems, Hull said that it's also a very common obfuscation tactic for hackers and other criminals who want to launder money and cover their tracks.
Hull said that Elliptic has recently expanded its coverage to support 50 blockchains, meaning that investigators who use Elliptic's software are able to easily trace funds that move between any of the covered blockchains, or pass through any of the '300-plus' bridges Elliptic's software supports. Hull added that Elliptic is able to add a new blockchain to its coverage in as little as three weeks.
'The most important, risky, high-stakes investigations are the ones where the [bad] actor is trying to launder or hide or obfuscate the funds so they pop more and more across these blockchains,' Hull said. 'So that's really what drives it.'
Elliptic aided U.S. law enforcement in their recent takedown of sanctioned Russian crypto exchange Garantex, which was popular with ransomware gangs and Russian oligarchs looking to evade sanctions. Following the takedown, the exchange has attempted to rebrand as Grinex.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
AVAX Rebounds From Key Support After 6% Plunge
Avalanche AVAX found support after a substantial decline on the short-term, according to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis model. The token is down 5.6% in the last 24 hours, underperforming the CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins — which lost 3.2% in the same period of time. Technical Analysis • AVAX-USD pair declined 6.46% before staging a recovery. • A high-volume support zone emerged around $20.76-$20.85, where strong buying interest reversed the downtrend. • Price action formed a descending channel with resistance at $21.65, which was broken when AVAX climbed above $21.20. • V-shaped reversal pattern formed with strong buying momentum emerging around the $21 psychological support level. • Heavy accumulation occurred, with trading volume exceeding 23,000 units per minute. • The $20.76-$21.00 zone may serve as a significant demand area for near-term price action. Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Drops as Mideast Tensions Rise, but $200K Still In Play
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) A weaker dollar, subdued inflation and heightened tensions in the Middle East are reshaping the crypto market's trajectory, giving bitcoin (BTC) room to run in the future, while pushing it down in the near term. While the largest cryptocurrency is lower today, analysts say a price of $200,000 is in play by year-end. One influence is the U.S. interest rate. Consumer prices rose less than forecast last month, increasing the chance of a Federal Reserve rate cut, which would bolster risk assets including cryptocurrencies. With core inflation stable at 2.8%, traders now largely expect two cuts this year beginning in September, according to the CME's FedWatch tool. Then there's the Middle East. The U.S. said yesterday it was moving people out of the region over heightened security risk and amid reports Israel is considering military action against Iran. Earlier today, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, ruled that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation duties for the first time in 20 years. With tensions rising, investors are ditching the dollar in favor of safe havens including gold and the Swiss franc as they position for a potential conflict. That has also pushed down cryptocurrency prices, with BTC losing 1.7% of its value in the last 24 hours and the broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index retreating 2.25%. 'Bitcoin continues to trade like a classic risk-on asset, responding sharply to macro tailwinds,' Boris Alergant, head of institutional partnerships at Babylon and a former Ripple and JPMorgan executive, told CoinDesk. 'That said, the broader picture for BTC remains optimistic,' Alergant said. 'More institutions are emulating MicroStrategy's BTC treasury strategy, creating a steady base of structural demand.' Still, the SEC's recent willingness to greenlight ETF applications tied to altcoins such as solana, led to predictions of an 'altcoin ETF summer' while signals of regulatory friendliness toward staking and protocol-based yield helped lift DeFi tokens. 'This marks the first time the SEC has shown coordinated openness to both layer-1 assets and the DeFi ecosystem,' Youwei Yang, chief economist at BIT Mining, told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, pointed to $900 million in new digital asset fund inflows this week, suggesting that investor confidence is rebounding. 'This resurgence comes as bitcoin trades near all-time highs and global money supply conditions loosen, suggesting there could be further upside potential for digital asset prices more broadly,' he said. Keep in mind, though, the balance of global events. Tame inflation could help boost risk assets, yet unexpected escalation in the Middle East could reverse those gains. Stay alert! Crypto June 12, 10 a.m.: Coinbase's State of Crypto Summit 2025 (New York). Livestream link. June 16: 21Shares executes a 3-for-1 share split for ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB); ticker and NAV remain unchanged. June 16: Brazil's B3 exchange launches USD-settled ether (0.25 ETH) and solana (5 SOL) futures contracts, approved by Brazil's securities regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) and benchmarked to Nasdaq indices. Macro June 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases May producer price inflation data. Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. -0.4% Core PPI YoY Est. 3.1% vs. Prev. 3.1% PPI MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. -0.5% PPI YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.4% June 12, 3 p.m.: Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census releases May inflation data. Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 2.8% Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 47.3% June 15-17: G7 2025 Summit (Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada) Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) June 23 (TBC): HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE), post-market Governance votes & calls ApeCoin DAO is weighing scrapping the decentralized autonomous organization and launching ApeCo to 'supercharge the APE ecosystem.' The discussion is scheduled to end later today. Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to launch DRIP, an $80M incentives program targeting specific DeFi activity. Managed by a foundation-led committee, DRIP would reward users directly and allow the DAO to shut it down via vote. Voting ends June 20. June 12, 11:30 a.m.: Jupiter to host its Planetary Call with a 'special guest.' Unlocks June 13: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.33% of its circulating supply worth $12.44 million. June 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $17.06 million. June 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.04% of its circulating supply worth $10.65 million. June 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.91% of its circulating supply worth $35.74 million. June 17: ZKsync (ZK) to unlock 20.91% of its circulating supply worth $41.78 million. June 17: ApeCoin (APE) to unlock 1.95% of its circulating supply worth $11.10 million. Token Launches June 12: Coinbase to list Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), Subsquid (SQD) and PancakeSwap (CAKE). June 12: Ethena (ENA) and Solayer (LAYER) to be listed on June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon's sunsetting process ends June 26: Coinbase to delist Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN) and Synapse (SYN). Day 3 of 3: Ripple's Apex 2025 (Singapore) June 14: Incrypted Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv) June 18-19: Canadian Blockchain Consortium's 2nd Annual Policy Summit (Ottawa) June 19-21: BTC Prague 2025 June 25-26: Bitcoin Policy Institute's Bitcoin Policy Summit 2025 (Washington) June 26: The Injective Summit (New York) June 26-27: Istanbul Blockchain Week June 30 to July 3: Ethereum Community Conference (Cannes, France) By Oliver Knight SPX6900 (SPX), one of many AI agent memecoins that spawned in the latter half of 2024, rocketed to a record high of $1.71 on Wednesday, defying a wider market sell-off prompted by political tensions involving Iran. The project's goal is to flip the entire U.S. stock market in terms of capitalization and while it's a few trillion dollars away, it has amassed a $1.7 billion market cap. Crypto analyst and social media personality Murad famously racked up a $40 million unrealized loss earlier this year. That loss has become a $55 million gain due to the token's ascent. SPX remains one of just a handful of altcoins that are positive over the past 24 hours as much of the market continues to reel over fears that a fighting could escalate in the Middle East. Gold and oil prices rose significantly overnight, which is historically a sign of impending conflict. CoinMarketCap's AI agent memecoin sector is down by 3.5%. Bitcoin options open interest on Deribit has reached $36.7 billion, the highest level seen this month. The dominant expiry remains June 27 with over $13.8 billion in notional open interest, and bullish call positioning continuing to cluster at the $140,000 strike. The put/call ratio stands at 0.60, reflecting a moderate bias toward calls, though less so than in recent sessions. Ether options open interest has climbed to a yearly high of $6.87 billion on Deribit. More than $2.38 billion in notional value is tied to the June 27 expiry, with calls heavily concentrated at the $3,000 strike where $614 million is positioned. The put/call ratio sits at 0.45, indicating a strong preference for upside exposure into the quarter-end. BTC funding rates have stabilized across major venues, with Deribit at 12.84% APR, Bybit at 10.75%, and Binance at 8.12%, according to data from Velo. This supports the view that long positioning remains elevated, but not at extremes. Aggregate futures open interest stands at $55.4 billion across Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit and Hyperliquid with Binance accounting for $23.3 billion of that total, based on Velo data. BTC is down 1.26% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $107,534.98 (24hrs: -1.77%) ETH is down 2.21% at $2,753.40 (24hrs: -0.8%) CoinDesk 20 is down 2.05% at 3,198.06 (24hrs: -2.52%) Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 3.05% BTC funding rate is at 0.0075% (8.1731% annualized) on Binance DXY is down 0.57% at 98.07 Gold futures are up 1.26% at $3,385.80 Silver futures are down 0.54% at $36.06 Nikkei 225 closed down 0.65% at 38,173.09 Hang Seng closed down 1.36% at 24,035.38 FTSE is down 0.15% at 8,851.13 Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.87% at 5,346.38 DJIA closed on Wednesday unchanged at 42,865.77 S&P 500 closed down 0.27% at 6,022.24 Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.50% at 19,615.88 S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.37% at 26,524.16 S&P 40 Latin America closed up +1.42% at 2,625.01 U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 4 bps at 4.39% E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.41% at 6,004.25 E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.33% at 21,815.50 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.60% at 42,649.00 BTC Dominance: 64.07 (-0.08%) Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02562 (0.43%) Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 913 EH/s Hashprice (spot): $54.7 Total Fees: 4.76 BTC / $521,445 CME Futures Open Interest: 150,075 BTC BTC priced in gold: 31.9 oz BTC vs gold market cap: 9.04% Solana's sol (SOL) failed to find acceptance above the 200-day exponential moving average on the daily timeframe, leading to a deviation back below key moving averages. The 100-day EMA is currently providing support. Notably, SOL closed below Monday's high in the previous session, presenting a clean setup for a Monday Range strategy. If the pullback continues, Monday's low at $149.68 serves as a key downside target. This level also aligns with a weekly demand zone (order block), potentially acting as a strong support area. Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $387.11 (-1.04%), -1.47% at $381.43 in pre-market Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $250.68 (-1.67%), -1.11% at $247.90 Circle (CRCL): closed at $117.2 (+10.66%), unchanged in pre-market Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.42 (-3.4%) MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.35 (-0.85%), -2.08% at $16.01 Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.55 (+0.96%), -1.42% at $10.40 Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.25 (-4.07%), -1.22% at $12.10 CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.97 (-1.58%), -1.6% at $9.81 CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $20 (-1.38%) Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $31.72 (+0.7%), -0.69% at $31.50 Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $31.08 (-7.91%), +1.38% at $31.51 Spot BTC ETFs Daily net flow: $164.6 million Cumulative net flows: $45.20 billion Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million Spot ETH ETFs Daily net flow: $240.3 million Cumulative net flows: $3.76 billion Total ETH holdings ~ 3.84 million Source: Farside Investors The chart from TheTie shows bitcoin generally moved in the same direction as the U.S. equity market as measured by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The cryptocurrency is nevertheless more volatile than the equity benchmark. Bitcoin briefly decoupled around April as it sold off while equities were relatively steady. Bitcoin at $200K by Year-End Is Now Firmly in Play, Analyst Says After Muted U.S. Inflation Data (CoinDesk): Matt Mena says bitcoin could benefit from improving macro clarity, institutional adoption, treasury demand and state-level reserve programs that may boost ETF inflows and strengthen its role in global portfolios. Strong Uptake at 10-Year U.S. Debt Sale Eases Demand Concerns, 30-Year Sale's Up Next (CoinDesk): Strong demand for 10-year Treasuries countered concerns over waning appetite for U.S. debt, now above $36 trillion, while some analysts cited bitcoin and gold as hedges against mounting fiscal risks. Marines to Deploy on L.A. Streets Within Two Days With Authority to Detain Civilians (Reuters): The 700 Marines have completed training in deescalation and crowd control and will join National Guard forces to help protect federal personnel and property under Title 10 of U.S. Code. Trump Is Pushing Allies Away and Closer to Each Other (The New York Times): The U.K., France, Canada and other mid-sized allies are deepening cooperation as Trump's unilateralism and tariff policy strain their longstanding ties with the U.S. Where Russia Is Advancing in Ukraine and What It Hopes to Gain (The Wall Street Journal): Russia made its largest monthly gains since late 2022 in May, aiming to convince Ukraine's allies that continued military and financial aid is pointless because Russia's victory is inevitable. Mercurity Fintech Plans $800M Bitcoin Treasury, Eyes Russell 2000 Inclusion (CoinDesk): The company said it will use the funds to acquire bitcoin, secure it with blockchain-native custody, and integrate it into a platform combining tokenized treasuries and staking services. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Major Airlines Cancel 650 European Flights as Delays Rock Travelers
The Israeli strikes against Iran are affecting travelers around the world as multiple major airlines have canceled or delayed flights. And they're not just flights to Israel. The turmoil is affecting worldwide travel. Multiple major airlines have cancelled or diverted "thousands of flights," straining airlines already struggling with profitability, according to Reuters. Eurocontrol told Reuters that it's not just the Middle East; about 1,800 flights to and from Europe were affected by the turmoil on June 13 by mid morning, including 650 cancelled flights, Reuters reported. Air India announced a string of diverted flights, including some from or to European destinations and the U.S. There were 15,964 delayed flights worldwide on June 13 with 928 cancellations, including 168 into or out of the U.S., FlightAware reported. Flight tracking sites showed there was no commercial air travel over Iran, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq on June 13. The airports in Tehran, Tel Aviv, and Amman were all closed. Global air travel has been disrupted, CNN reported. According to Reuters, flying through the Middle East region is an "important route for international flights between Europe and Asia," especially since Russian and Ukrainian airspace was already shut down. Travel to Israel or the Middle East was impacted most. Airlines that had canceled, delayed, or "redirected" flights on June 13 included "Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, and Air India, as well as the German-based Lufthansa," according to CBS. In addition, El-Al and Isair, which are Israeli airlines, "evacuated planes from Tel Aviv," CBS reported. The cancellations affected the region around Israel but also "beyond," the network reported. Israel's Ben-Gurion airport was completely closed to air travel passengers. Emirates "canceled flights to and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran," CBS reported. According to Reuters, El Al Airlines, Air France, Ryanair, and Wizz, suspended flights to and from Airlines Cancel 650 European Flights as Delays Rock Travelers first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 13, 2025
