Less than 0.5% of stablecoin transactions were linked to illegal activity by 2025, according to a recent report by blockchain analytics platform TRM Labs.
Illegal flows accounted for about 0.4% of total activity, underscoring that the use of the stablecoin remains overwhelmingly legitimate, TRM Labs’ analysis showed.
TRM said 2025 was the first year in which stablecoin activity exceeded $1 trillion in monthly transaction volume multiple times, with sustained throughput rather than short-lived speculative spikes.
By 2024, stablecoin transaction volume saw unprecedented growth with the total onchain transfer volume exceeding $27.5 trillion, and by 2025, it increased by nearly 20% to at least $35 trillion.
Illegal activity followed a similar trajectory of concentration and scale. In 2025, illicit entities received $141 billion in stablecoins, the highest level observed in five years, of which $72 billion was tied to the A7A5 token, a ruble-pegged stablecoin that operates within sanction-linked networks.
Oleg Ogienko, A7A5’s Director of Regulatory and Overseas Affairs, told CoinDesk that “TRM Labs is trying to call all Russian external trade illicit or illegal. But this is of course a misstatement.”
In separate comments during an interview at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Ogienko was even more defiant, saying he sought to debate anyone accusing him of breaking any compliance laws through his stablecoin company.
“We are fully compliant with the rules of Kyrgyzstan. We are not doing illegal things,” he said. “We have KYC procedures and we have AML mechanisms embedded in our infrastructure. We are not violating any Financial Action Task Force principles.”
However, Old Vector LLC and A7 LLC, A7A5’s issuing and affiliated entities, and Promsvyazbank (PSB), the bank holding the reserves, are sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, preventing the US dollar-denominated financial world from interacting with them.
The TRM Labs report said that stablecoins accounted for 86% of all illicit crypto flows by 2025, underscoring how dominant they have become in high-risk ecosystems. Sanctions-related networks consolidated dramatically by 2025, with the A7 ecosystem alone pegged for at least $83 billion in direct volume. These networks increasingly resemble parallel cross-border financial systems rather than isolated actors.
In comparison, 2024 represented a scaling phase. Money laundering infrastructure such as escrow services expanded rapidly from 2022 to mid-2025, peaking at over $17 billion per year. quarter, where around 99% of volume was denominated in stablecoins. But the institutionalization and centralization seen in 2025, particularly via A7 and front-company exchanges, had not yet reached the same extent.
