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Crypto use in suspected human trafficking rose 85% in 2025, reaching "hundreds of millions of dollars across identified services," according to Chainalysis.
Released Thursday, the 2026 Crypto Crime Report tracked payments tied to escort services, labor recruitment for Southeast Asian scam compounds, and vendors of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.
According to the firm's intelligence analyst, Tom McLouth, the findings mark an industry-defining moment.
“I haven’t seen anyone talk about human trafficking holistically within the current crypto ecosystem and how it’s being leveraged,” he told Decrypt. “I think one of the primary reasons is that this is a relatively taboo subject. People don’t like to sit at the dinner table and talk about CSAM and industrialized exploitation.”
The findings come as crypto faces renewed scrutiny in criminal investigations.
Justice Department disclosures have detailed early crypto investments by Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to high-profile industry figures.
At the same time, a reported Bitcoin ransom demand in the kidnapping case involving Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, has drawn significant media attention.
McLouth said large-scale crypto-linked crime is harder to personalize than cases tied to well-known names.
“We’re not able to say this one specific person is doing this one specific crime,” he said. “Jeffrey Epstein, as we see in the news, is a name everyone can latch onto. But for an entire ecosystem, an entire industry, we’re not able to do that.”
While some reports citing Chainalysis showed that crypto transactions linked to suspected trafficking operations jumped 85% in 2025 to $260 million, Decrypt was unable to independently verify that figure.
“We are measuring inflows to crypto addresses we have identified with human trafficking or CSAM operators,” a Chainalysis spokesperson told Decrypt.
“We aren't providing absolute values because we know our estimate is a lower bound estimate, and we don't want an undercount to then be cited everywhere,” they said. “That's why we gave a range in the hundreds of millions, so we could at least communicate scale.”
Follow the data
The report breaks down how transaction patterns differ across categories.
According to Chainalysis, blockchain analysis showed 48.8% of transfers tied to 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 linked to labor trafficking operations typically ranged from $1,000 to $10,000.
CSAM transactions were typically small, the report said, with roughly half being under $100.
In one case cited in the report, a single CSAM site used more than 5,800 cryptocurrency addresses and generated over $530,000 since July 2022. Separately, the Internet Watch Foundation identified more than 312,000 reports of child sexual abuse imagery in 2025.
The report also traces the flow of the funds, with blockchain data showing crypto moving from the U.S., UK, Brazil, Spain, and Australia into Southeast Asian hubs. Many publicly accessible CSAM sites rely on U.S.-based hosting infrastructure.
“To target those victims, because there is a belief that there is more wealth in English-speaking Western states, they have to leverage infrastructure within those states to better target those potential victims,” McLouth said. “I think that same thinking is being leveraged at the CSAM level of this ecosystem. The largest opportunity for funds may be from English-speaking Westerners, so they leverage infrastructure in those states.”
Not just Bitcoin
Payment methods vary by category. While Bitcoin remains widely used, the report notes 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 says, are also increasingly turning to Monero because of the ability to obscure transaction details.
Criminal operations that once operated primarily on the dark web now also use mainstream platforms, Chainalysis claims.
The report found that trafficking-related services rely on Telegram-based “guarantee services” such as Tudou and Xinbi, which hold crypto in escrow until transactions are confirmed.
It also identifies Telegram recruitment channels tied to Southeast Asian scam compounds, where discussions include 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. Decrypt has approached Telegram for comment.
“We have also seen intervention and action taken by Telegram, so much so that some of the most prominent guarantee services created their own third-party applications that were advertised on app stores like Apple and Google Play,” he said.
McLouth emphasized that while crypto continues to play a large role in CSAM and human trafficking, that number pales in comparison to the role of fiat currencies.
“From the perspective of crypto, we want to emphasize that crypto isn’t enabling the crime,” he said. “Crypto is allowing us to expose it, and provides new opportunities for countering it and having these discussions based on the fact that we haven’t been able to have previously.”
McLouth said the figures don’t bode well for 2026 and should prompt a broader conversation about enforcement and accountability.
“In my view, this is industry-defining. We don’t focus on specific figures because it can undersell the human toll,” he said. “This is real human trafficking, real sex trafficking, real labor trafficking. These are real people being affected.”