Tornado Cash Dominates List of Crypto Privacy Protocols Used for Money Laundering

Research by crypto analyst WazzCrypto has shed light on the prevalence of money laundering in the cryptocurrency space. An examination of over 200 on-chain investigations from 2025 and 2026 revealed that privacy protocols are being increasingly used for illicit activities.

Tornado Cash emerged as the most frequently identified privacy protocol, appearing in 107 investigations. This was significantly higher than other protocols like Railgun, which ranked second with only 18 investigations. NEAR Intents came third with eight cases.

The use of these privacy protocols can make blockchain transactions more difficult to track by breaking or obscuring links between addresses. For example, Railgun uses zero-knowledge (zk) cryptography to conceal transaction details such as the sender, recipient, token type, and amount.

While the data suggests that privacy technologies are being used for money laundering, it's essential to note that the analysis only measures how often each protocol appeared in investigations, not the actual amount of illicit funds processed. Further research is necessary to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this issue.