$649B in Stablecoins Fueling High-Risk Gambles in 2024 – Bitrace Exposes the Dirty Laundry
Stablecoins were supposed to be the boring, responsible cousin of crypto—turns out they’re the getaway car for $649 billion in shady deals this year alone.
The ’safe’ asset masking chaos
Bitrace’s bombshell report reveals how Tether, USDC, and others became the preferred tokens for gambling, money laundering, and offshore speculation. Who needs banks when you’ve got algorithmic dollar-pegged tokens with zero oversight?
Wall Street’s worst nightmare
While traditional finance frets about compliance, crypto’s shadow economy bypasses regulations entirely—proving once again that where there’s yield, there’s a way (and a stablecoin to grease the wheels).
Proportion of High-Risk Activities in Total Stablecoin Transactions
Most of the high-risk transactions happened with Tether’s USDT on the TRON blockchain. According to Bitrace, more than 70% of the high-risk volume came from this network. Ethereum-based USDT came next, followed by a smaller portion involving USDC.
“A likely explanation for the prevalence of USDT is likely due to its larger market capitalization and adoption compared with other stablecoins,” the report stated.
Even though Ethereum has more stablecoins in general, Tron holds more USDT specifically. At the time of the report, Tron had 47.4% of the total USDT supply, while Ethereum had 45.44%, according to data from Defillama. Tron’s dominance in this area was unexpected because Ethereum is still the more widely used platform for most crypto users.
Bitrace also revealed that crypto gambling is booming. In 2024, online gambling sites handled $217.8 billion in stablecoins. That’s a 17.5% jump from the year before. Again, USDT was used the most, but USDC gained ground, with a 13.36% share.
The report’s findings match other recent reports. For example, the FBI said Americans lost $9.3 billion to crypto fraud in 2024. Crypto casinos also made over $81 billion in revenue last year, even though some countries tried to block access.
Also Read: UK introduced Draft Laws to Govern Crypto Exchanges
