Were stablecoins designed to provide users with greater liquidity around the world and reduce the volatility of cryptocurrencies, or to enable criminals to steal users’ funds? Chainalysis just released a report that provides insight into this question.
For the past two years, there has been a spike in the use of stablecoins by scammers in the crypto industry according to Chainalysis. Before 2021, most scamming activities were done using bitcoin.
But with the change of market realities, from mid 2021 onwards, scammers are using stablecoins to receive payments from their victims.
This trend seems strange as these scammers rely on stablecoins even when bitcoin was bullish. A possible reason behind the affinity for stablecoins during the upward trend of bitcoin was most likely to avoid any market crash.
Thus, stablecoins present a better hedge against any loss of value for these criminals. On the side of victims, the report notes that they also want to hold their bitcoin in any event of increase in value.
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