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Ransomware Payments Fell 35% in 2024 as More Victims Refuse to Pay: Chainalysis

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2 месяца ago

5 февраля, 2025

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The ransomware business took a hit in 2024, with payments falling 35% year-over-year, according to a new report from Chainalysis.

Though the number of ransomware attacks increased in 2024, ransomware gangs made less money, pulling in $814 million compared to 2023’s record-high sum of $1.25 billion. The blockchain analytics firm attributes the decline to a variety of factors, including an uptick in law enforcement actions and sanctions, as well as a growing refusal by victims to pay their attackers.

Last year, less than half of all recorded ransomware attacks resulted in victim payments. Jacqueline Burns Koven, Chainalysis’ head of cyber threat intelligence, told CoinDesk that part of the non-payment trend can be attributed to a growing distrust that complying with attackers’ demands will actually result in victims’ stolen data being deleted from the attacker’s possession.

In February 2024, American insurance company United Healthcare paid a $22 million ransom to Russian ransomware gang BlackCat after one of its subsidiaries was breached and patient data exposed. But BlackCat imploded shortly after the ransom was paid, and the data United Healthcare had paid to protect was leaked. Similarly, the takedown of another Russian ransomware gang, LockBit, by U.S. and U.K. law enforcement in early 2024 also revealed that the group did not actually delete victims’ data as promised.

“What it illuminated is that payment of a ransom is no guarantee of data deletion,” Koven said.

Koven added that, even if ransomware victims wanted to pay, their hands are often tied by international sanctions.

“There’s been a spate of sanctions against different ransomware groups and for some entities, it’s outside of their risk threshold to be willing to pay them because it constitutes sanctions risk,” Koven said.

Chainalysis’ report points to one other reason for decreased payments in 2024 – victims are wising up. Lizzie Cookson, senior director of incident response at Coveware, a ransomware incident response firm, told Chainalysis that, due to improved cyber hygiene, many victims are now better able to resist attackers’ demands.

“They may ultimately determine that a decryption tool is their best option and negotiate to reduce the final payment, but more often, they find that restoring from recent backups is the faster and more cost-effective path,” Cookson said in the report.

Challenges to cashing-out

Chainalysis’ report also suggests that ransomware attackers are also struggling with cashing-out their ill-gotten gains. The firm found a “substantial decline” in the use of crypto mixers in 2024, which the report attributed to the “disruptive impact of sanctions and law enforcement actions, such as those against Chipmixer, Tornado Cash, and Sinbad.”

Last year, more ransomware actors simply held their funds in personal wallets, according to the report.

“Curiously, ransomware operators, a primarily financially motivated group, are abstaining from cashing out more than ever,» it said. «We attribute this largely to increased caution and uncertainty amid what is probably perceived as law enforcement’s unpredictable and decisive actions targeting individuals and services participating in or facilitating ransomware laundering, resulting in insecurity among threat actors about where they can safely put their funds.»

Looking forward

Despite the clear impact of law enforcement’s crackdown on ransomware gangs last year, Koven stressed that it’s too early to say whether the downward trend is here to stay.

“I think it is premature to be celebrating, because all the factors are there for it to reverse in 2025, for those large attacks — the big game hunting — to resume,” Koven said.

You can read the full report here on Chainalysis’ blog.

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Cathie Wood’s ARK Buys Over $13M Worth Coinbase Shares During Market Rout

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42 минуты ago

6 апреля, 2025

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Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management took advantage of the $5.4 trillion U.S. equities market sell-off and purchased over 83,000 shares of Coinbase (COIN), increasing exposure to the crypto exchange even as prices dipped sharply across the board.

The total shares purchased were worth more than $13 million, taking Friday’s closing price for Coinbase.

According to ARK’s daily trading disclosure for April 4, Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) bought nearly 55,000 Coinbase shares, with additional purchases coming from the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF).

The timing is notable. Coinbase shares have slipped more than 12% during the market rout, while bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies showed resilience. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index dropped by 5.8% in the same period. The sell-off came after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs against nearly every country in the world.

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Bitcoin Posts Worst Q1 in a Decade, Raising Questions About Where the Cycle Stands

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4 часа ago

6 апреля, 2025

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Bitcoin just notched its worst first quarter in a decade, falling 11.7% as markets struggled to understand the new administration’s economic agenda.

The performance ranked 12th out of the past 15 first quarters, according to NYDIG Research’s data.

The drawdown invites a familiar question in crypto circles: is the cycle over? The last time bitcoin started the year this poorly was in 2015, during a prolonged slump following the 2013 peak and after the collapse of Mt. Gox, according to NYDIG. Back then, prices recovered modestly over the rest of the year before surging in 2016.

In the first quarter of 2020, amid a market sell-off tied to fears surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, BTC saw a 9.4% drawdown but then recovered to end the year up over 300%. In other years with negative Q1 returns—like 2014, 2018 and 2022—bitcoin ended the year down sharply, coinciding with the tail ends of previous bull cycles, the research note said.

This time around, the backdrop is murky. Cryptocurrency prices surged after Donald Trump won the U.S. election in November after running a pro-crypto campaign. While under the Trump administration, the sector has been gaining greater regulatory clarity, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) backed off a number of lawsuits against crypto firms, it isn’t all bullish.

Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs against nearly every country in the world last week, leading to a massive $5.4 trillion U.S. equities market wipeout in just two days. This led to the S&P 500 index’s lowest level in 11 months and the Nasdaq 100’s entry into bear market territory. While bitcoin has outperformed so far, what will happen after Monday’s opening bell is unclear.

Historically, a weak Q1 doesn’t always spell doom for BTC, NYDIG’s data shows. The asset has bounced back in half of the years when it started in the red. The recent macroeconomic backdrop has seen analysts raise recession odds, which could test BTC’s role as a “U.S. isolation hedge.”
Read more: Chart of The Week: Will April Bring Good Luck or Fool’s Hope for Bitcoin?

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Chart of the Week: Bond Market Could be Bitcoin’s ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’ Signal

Published

8 часов ago

6 апреля, 2025

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Credit spreads are widening and have reached their highest levels since August 2024 — a period that coincided with bitcoin (BTC) dropping 33% during the yen carry trade unwind.

One way to track this is through the ratio of the iShares 3–7 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEI) to the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG). This IEI/HYG ratio, highlighted by analyst Caleb Franzen, serves as a proxy for credit spreads and is now showing its sharpest spike since the Silicon Valley Bank crisis in March 2023 — a moment that marked a local bottom in bitcoin just below $20,000.

Historically, bitcoin and other risk assets tend to fall during sharp credit spread expansions.

The key question now is whether this surge has peaked or if more downside lies ahead. If spreads continue to rise, it could reflect mounting stress in financial markets — and spell further trouble for risk-on positioning.

A credit spread represents the yield difference between safe government bonds and riskier corporate bonds. When spreads widen, it signals growing risk aversion and tightening financial conditions.

However, Friday’s market action seems to indicate that bitcoin is starting to decouple from the traditional markets, outperforming equities. One analyst event called it the new «U.S. isolation hedge,» indicating that BTC might be starting to act more like a safe haven or digital gold for TradFi investors.
Read more: Crypto Outperforms Nasdaq as BTC Becomes ‘U.S. Isolation Hedge’ Amid $5T Equities Carnage