Crypto Flows to Suspected Human Trafficking Services Jump 85% in 2025: Chainalysis

Cryptocurrency use in suspected human trafficking rose 85% by 2025, reaching “hundreds of millions of dollars for identified services,” according to Chainalysis.

Released Thursday, the Crypto Crime 2026 Report tracked payments related to escort services, labor recruitment for Southeast Asian scammers, and sellers of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.

According to the company’s intelligence analyst Tom McLouth, the findings mark an industry-defining moment.

“I haven’t seen anyone talk holistically about human trafficking within the current crypto ecosystem and how it’s being leveraged,” he said. Declutter. “I think one of the main reasons is that this is a relatively taboo subject. People don’t like to sit around the dinner table and talk about CSAM and industrialized exploitation.”

The findings come as crypto is once again under scrutiny in criminal investigations.

Revelations from the Department of Justice have detailed Jeffrey Epstein’s early crypto investments and his connections to high-profile industry figures.

At the same time, a reported Bitcoin ransom demand in the kidnapping case involving Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, has attracted significant media attention.

McLouth said large-scale crypto-related crime is harder to personalize than cases tied to household names.

“We cannot say that this one specific person is committing this one specific crime,” he said. “Jeffrey Epstein, as we see in the news, is a name that everyone can hold on to. But for an entire ecosystem, an entire industry, we are not able to do that.”

While some reports citing Chainalysis it turned out that crypto transactions linked to suspected human trafficking operations will increase by 85% to $260 million by 2025, Declutter was unable to independently verify that figure.

“We are measuring inflows to crypto addresses that we have identified with human trafficking or CSAM operators,” a Chainalysis spokesperson said. Declutter.

“We don’t provide absolute values ​​because we know our estimate is a lower limit, and we don’t want a lower value to be stated everywhere,” they said. “That’s why we specified a reach in the hundreds of millions, so we could at least communicate the scale.”

Follow the data

The report explains how transaction patterns differ by category.

According to Chainalysis, blockchain analysis found that 48.8% of transfers associated with Telegram-based international escort networks exceeded $10,000 in 2025.

Approximately 62% of prostitution network transactions fell between $1,000 and $10,000, while recruitment payments associated with labor trafficking activities typically ranged from $1,000 to $10,000.

CSAM transactions were generally small, the report said, with about half being less than $100.

In one case cited in the report, a single CSAM site used more than 5,800 cryptocurrency addresses and generated more than $530,000 as of July 2022. In addition, the Internet Watch Foundation identified more than 312,000 reports of child sexual abuse images in 2025.

The report also tracks the flow of funds, with blockchain data showing crypto moving from the US, UK, Brazil, Spain and Australia to Southeast Asian hubs. Many publicly accessible CSAM sites rely on US-based hosting infrastructure.

“To target these victims, because there is a belief that there is more prosperity in English-speaking Western states, they need to leverage the infrastructure within those states to better target those potential victims,” McLouth said. “I think the same thinking is applied at the CSAM level of this ecosystem. The biggest opportunities for funding can come from English-speaking Westerners, so they leverage the infrastructure in those states.”

Not just Bitcoin

Payment methods differ per category. While Bitcoin remains widely used, the report finds a growing reliance on stablecoins among prostitution and labor trafficking networks, which can be converted into local currency through Chinese-language money laundering networks.

CSAM vendors, the report said, are also increasingly turning to Monero for its ability to obscure transaction details.

Criminal operations that once operated primarily on the dark web are now also using mainstream platforms, Chainalysis claims.

The report shows that human trafficking-related services rely on Telegram-based “guarantee services” such as Tudou and Xinbi, which hold crypto until transactions are confirmed.

It also identifies Telegram’s recruitment channels linked to scam sites in Southeast Asia, including transporting detained workers across borders.

McLouth noted that while these operations exist on Telegram, the company has made efforts to curb crime using its app. Declutter has approached Telegram for comment.

“We have also seen interventions and action from Telegram, so much so that some of the most prominent warranty services created their own third-party applications that were advertised on app stores such as Apple and Google Play,” he said.

McLouth highlighted that while crypto continues to play a large role in CSAM and human trafficking, this number pales in comparison to the role of fiat currency.

“From a crypto perspective, we want to emphasize that crypto does not enable crime,” he said. “Crypto allows us to expose it and provides new opportunities to counter it and have these discussions based on the fact that we couldn’t do that before.”

McLouth said the numbers do not bode well for 2026 and should spark a broader conversation about enforcement and accountability.

“In my view, this is a defining feature of the sector. We don’t focus on specific figures because it could undermine the human cost,” he said. “This is real human trafficking, real sex trafficking, real labor trafficking. These are real people being affected.”