Inside the Crypto Laundering Machine: A Taxonomic Study of Crypto Money Laundering Schemes and Countermeasures

Abstract

The rise of Web3 and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has enabled borderless access to financial services built on smart contracts and blockchains. The same trustless, permissionless nature creates fertile ground for financial crime, and money laundering in particular, since it lets proceeds from scams, exploits, and market manipulation move covertly. Prior work on crypto money laundering is fragmented, dated, or limited to single vectors. This thesis addresses that through a systematic, interdisciplinary review of academic, regulatory, and industry sources. It consolidates known schemes into a taxonomy of money laundering in Web3, organised into high-level obfuscation strategies and the intermediary mechanisms that realise them, and identifies emerging schemes not previously documented. It then surveys countermeasures across detection and prevention as pursued in academia, regulation, and industry, and draws out the open challenges and future directions toward a more transparent Web3 financial ecosystem.

Defence slides

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