Accordingly, US investors have made a profit of up to $ 4.1 billion by investing in this world’s number 1 “virtual currency”. Right behind the US is China with 1.1 billion USD. The remaining positions in the top 5 include Japan ($0.9 billion), UK ($0.8 billion) and Russia ($0.6 billion). Notably, this list also includes the presence of Vietnam. According to Chainalysis estimates, Vietnamese investors have earned $0.4 billion in 2020 by investing in Bitcoin. On a global scale, Vietnam ranks 13th in the world in terms of Bitcoin-related profitability. Vietnam is also the 4th country in terms of cryptocurrency profits, just behind China, Japan, and South Korea. Ranking of the 25 most profitable countries from Bitcoin in 2020. According to Chainalysis, due to the decentralized nature of the technology, it is very difficult to find out where the parties are in a cryptocurrency transaction. The published results were estimated using transaction data from services that Chainalysis tracks. In its analysis, Chainalysis measures the total volume of Bitcoin transactions at each crypto exchange. They estimate the amount earned by the difference in the price of Bitcoin at 2 times of entering and leaving the exchange. Chainalysis then distributes this profit based on each country’s share of web traffic on each exchange. By doing this, Chainalysis has produced a report on how much return investors in each country will make with Bitcoin in 2020. Even so, Chainalysis’s methodology is approximate and not yet available. regardless of the profits from the digital assets still in the exchanges. Vietnam currently ranks 10th on the Global Cryptocurrency Acceptance Index. According to Chainalysis, Vietnam is a perfect example of a country where the level of participation in cryptocurrency transactions far exceeds the ranking of the economy. Although only ranked 53rd in GDP with about $262 billion and ranked as a low-middle-income country, Vietnam still has a fairly high level of acceptance for cryptocurrency transactions. Accordingly, Vietnam ranks 10th out of 154 countries in the Global Cryptocurrency Acceptance Index. This is one of the rare indexes where Vietnam has the same rank as developed countries such as the US, China or South Africa, even more than many other developed countries such as the UK, France, Germany, and Spain. , Japan, Korea,… With such popularity, Chainalysis is not surprised that Vietnamese investors ranked 13th in the world in terms of income earned from Bitcoin in 2020. Many Vietnamese Bitcoin investors have won big in 2020. Similar to Vietnam, this phenomenon also occurs in a number of other countries such as the Czech Republic (54th in GDP, 18th in income from Bitcoin), Turkey (25th in GDP, 16th in revenue). Bitcoin income) and Spain (19th in GDP, 9th in Bitcoin income). On the other hand, despite having the 4th largest economy with the 2nd largest population in the world, India is being left behind in the crypto economy. In 2020, the country’s investors only made 241 million USD from the increase in the price of Bitcoin, ranked 18th in the world. This is because the Indian government does not seem to be very friendly with cryptocurrencies. India used to ban all cryptocurrency transactions in the country, until the Supreme Court of India lifted the ban in March 2020. Although many Vietnamese investors are making big profits from cryptocurrencies. Having said that, investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies is a very risky investment. Therefore, investors need to be careful and learn carefully before deciding to enter this harsh market.

“This group leaves cash in specific places – behind a bush or under a bus seat – for criminals to get. They send specific location instructions. This is a whole new profession.” Financial Times quoted Dr. Tom Robinson, founder of Elliptic organization specializing in analyzing cryptocurrency transactions. The dark web site Hydra (Russian) offers a variety of methods for criminals to exchange cryptocurrency for cash, for example exchanging Bitcoins for gift certificates, debit cards or iTunes vouchers. Special software is required to access the Hydra dark web. Photo: ZDNet. Anonymous but still leaving traces According to experts, the ability to store cryptocurrency without providing an identity makes this currency especially attractive to many criminal gangs, especially hackers specializing in breaking into networks of businesses. and demand ransom. Statistics from research firm Chainalysis show that in 2020, businesses and organizations paid at least $350 million in cryptocurrency ransoms to a number of hacker groups, including DarkSide, the group that attacked the pipeline system. Colonial Pipeline earlier this month. But while anonymous, cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on an immutable blockchain system, leaving a clear trail for anyone with any knowledge of the technology. A number of investigative firms have been established to assist national authorities in tracking various criminal gangs by analyzing the flow of cryptocurrency transactions. Chainalysis (headquartered in New York, USA) is one such company. Binance cryptocurrency exchange. In 2011-2019, cryptocurrency exchanges supported the conversion to cash of about 60-80% of Bitcoin transactions by criminal groups. Photo: Binance. Chainalysis raised $100 million in its initial public offering, reaching a valuation of over $2 billion. There are also Elliptic (headquartered in London, UK) and CipherTrace, a company supported by the US government. Chainalysis said that in 2020, some illegal organizations receive about 5 billion USD and transfer 5 billion USD to other organizations. This represents almost 1% of all global crypto flows. Initially, the criminals only withdrew funds through major cryptocurrency exchanges. Elliptic estimates that between 2011 and 2019, cryptocurrency exchanges supported the conversion of about 60-80% of Bitcoin transactions by illegal organizations into cash. Take advantage of crypto ATMs Since last year, exchanges have been concerned about the tightening of regulations by many governments, so they have begun to apply anti-money laundering (AML) and customer identity verification (KYC) processes. This change pushes criminals to unlicensed exchanges. Still, expert Michael Phillips of online insurance company Resilience said that unlicensed exchanges have low liquidity, making it difficult for criminals to convert crypto to fiat. “The goal is to make it more expensive for criminals to convert money,” he explained. However, criminals still have a way around. Research by Chainalysis shows that some intermediaries are quietly assisting gangs in conducting many illegal money conversion transactions. Meanwhile, small-scale transactions still flow through more than 11,600 crypto ATMs worldwide without any control, or through gambling sites that accept crypto payments. Criminals can use crypto ATMs to get cash. Photo: EPA. Faced with that situation, crypto security companies use the technology of analyzing blockchain transactions and intelligence to determine which crypto wallets belong to criminal gangs. At the same time, they provide an overview of the global crypto crime ecosystem. As a result, companies discovered that many hacker groups lease ransomware to criminal networks. Kimberly Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, said hackers also pay support services to other criminal groups in cryptocurrency. Thus, a criminal cryptocurrency ecosystem has been formed on a global scale. “We were able to see the ransom transactions, how the gangs split the money and how that money went to groups in the system,” Grauer said. The tricks are getting more and more sophisticated However, cybercriminals are increasingly using a variety of high-tech tools to obscure the traces of cryptocurrency transactions. Some criminals use “chain-hopping” – repeatedly switching between different cryptocurrencies – to avoid the eyes of security companies. In addition, they use a “privacy cryptocurrency” like Monero, which has a high degree of anonymity. Another tool commonly used by criminals is a “mixer,” a third-party service that mixes illegal cryptocurrencies with clean money, before pushing them back onto the market. In April, the US Department of Justice arrested a Swedish citizen of Russian origin, who specialized in operating a “mixing” service called Bitcoin Fog. During the past 10 years, this guy has transferred a total of 335 million USD in Bitcoin. Governments need to modernize confiscation and asset freezing processes to make it easier to confiscate cryptocurrencies from exchanges. Tom Kellerman, director of cybersecurity strategy at VMware V “It is possible to untangle mixed cryptocurrencies. However, that requires high technology and a lot of processing and data power,” said Katherine Kirkpatrick, director of law firm King & Spalding. According to Elliptic, the popular 2020 coin mixers are highly anonymous “personal wallets”. They supported 12% of Bitcoin wash transactions last year. Tom Kellerman, director of cybersecurity strategy at VMware and a member of the US Secret Service’s advisory board, said that governments need to modernize the process of confiscating and freezing assets for law enforcement. easily confiscate cryptocurrencies from exchanges. In the past, blockchain security experts have floated the idea of ​​sharing a “blacklist” of crypto wallets used by criminals with exchanges, analytics firms, and governments. “Now is the right time to consider that initiative.” he Kemba Walden of Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit.