The post Binance and Chainalysis Clash Over How to Measure Illicit Crypto Activity appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Crime The debate about criminal activity in crypto has never been about whether it exists — it’s about how to measure it. Key Takeaways: Binance measured only direct illicit inflows, making its reported crime exposure appear extremely low. Chainalysis and TRM Labs say indirect laundering routes were excluded and dramatically change the picture. The dispute highlights that crypto crime statistics depend more on definitions than on the underlying data. The latest flashpoint is Binance’s recent claim that illicit trading on major crypto exchanges is almost negligible. Chainalysis, whose data Binance cited, says the conclusion isn’t supported once the full spectrum of activity is included. The dispute reveals a deeper issue: crypto crime isn’t only a technical challenge. It’s a narrative one. Binance’s Message: Criminal Flows Are Tiny Compared to Total Volume When Binance published its breakdown in mid-November, the argument was straightforward: look at transaction volumes across the world’s seven biggest exchanges, isolate the wallets that regulators have formally labeled illicit, and count how much flows directly from those wallets into exchanges. That calculation produced eye-catching results — between 0.018% and 0.023%. And based on that slice of data, Binance concluded that not only are criminal inflows exceptionally low, but Binance itself has the lowest exposure among the major platforms. The implication: crypto’s crime problem is dramatically overstated. Chainalysis Pushes Back — Not Against the Math, but the Method Chainalysis agrees that the percentage is what Binance says it is. What it disputes is what that percentage actually represents. The firm says criminals almost never send stolen or ransomware funds straight to a big exchange anymore. Instead, they move them through chains of smaller wallets first so they appear clean before they land on Binance or its competitors. Under Binance’s methodology, those funds are treated as non-illicit. Chainalysis points out…

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Filed under: News - @ November 30, 2025 4:16 pm