Money Laundering Three Stages and Crypto Era Challenges

Definition of Money Laundering and Its Three Phases

Money Laundering is the act of concealing the true origin of illicit gains, which is mainly divided into three stages: Placement, where illegal funds are injected into the financial or encryption system; Layering, where the source is obscured through multiple transactions, including cross-border transfers and multiple switches between on-chain and off-chain; Integration, where the cleaned funds are invested into legitimate markets, such as real estate or NFTs, completing the legalization process.

Money Laundering cases in traditional finance

Banks use small split transfers to disguise the flow of funds, while multinational trade employs price manipulation to cover the source of funds. Shell companies are used as a cover, making illegal funds appear as normal income, posing a long-term threat to the security of the global financial system.

Regulatory actions and measures

Internationally, the FATF has introduced travel rules to regulate the identity information exchange of Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP); the U.S. SEC and FinCEN have strengthened platform compliance; the EU AMLD requires the implementation of KYC/AML processes, and major Asian markets have also successively formulated corresponding regulatory regulations to curb Money Laundering risks.

Web3 ecosystem response strategies

Under the decentralized spirit of Web3, communities and DAOs take on compliance responsibilities and establish internal rules. By utilizing on-chain analysis tools such as Chainalysis to monitor abnormal transactions, combined with community consensus to maintain transparency and sustainability, we promote the healthy growth of the ecosystem.

Challenges and Future Trends

The contradiction between privacy protection and regulatory compliance is significant, coupled with the complexity of cross-chain and DeFi which increases tracking difficulty. In the future, regulatory technology (RegTech) combining AI and big data will become mainstream, and trading platforms will also strengthen KYC + AML to achieve a new balance between compliance and freedom.