As cryptocurrencies enter the lives of the ordinary people cybercriminals start using them to facilitate crime. Europol last year estimated that about 3-4% of crime proceeds are laundered through the use of cryptocurrencies and that this figure is rising steadily. There are two main reasons - lack of regulation and anonymity. Recently, Anderson et al. showed that it is both computationally and legally possible to follow the 'taint' that a stolen coin leaves as it propagates through the network. In this paper we present new visualisation mechanisms for taint propagation in Bitcoin that display how cyber criminals launder money.
Tendrils of Crime: Visualizing the Diffusion of Stolen Bitcoins