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Industry Benchmark Report

How Much Is Too Much?

The First Industry Benchmark for High-Risk Exposure Across Centralized Exchanges

Even a fraction of a percent can represent billions in high-risk exposure. See what the data reveals: where risk concentrates, how it moves through the market, and how its structure changed over five years.

Global Ledger Analyzed

Desktop · 1440 · section 4 variant A (card)-selection
99
centralized exchanges
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$36.28T
in flows
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BTC, ETH and USDT
on Tron
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2021–2025

Until Now, Centralized Exchanges Had No Real Benchmark for High-Risk Exposure

A high-risk exposure rate means little without context

  • Is it typical for the market?
  • Driven by sanctions, hacks or fraud?
  • Concentrated in a handful of platforms or distributed across the industry?

Global Ledger analyzed how much high-risk exposure the market actually carries, where the outliers begin, and how that picture historically changed between 2021 and 2025 to establish the baseline compliance teams need to assess exchange risk in 2026.
Vladyslav Syrotin
Vladyslav Syrotin,
Team Lead of the Crypto Crime Investigations Team

The Report Answers:

  • What is the industry benchmark for risky inflows and outflows?
  • How has exposure changed since 2021?
  • How far do the largest outliers sit above it?

     

  • Which assets carry the greatest high-risk exposure?
  • How concentrated is high-risk exposure across exchanges

     

  • How deep does high-risk exposure go in blockchain hops?
  • Which risk categories became the largest drivers of exposure?
  • Does being licensed mean less exposure to high-risk activity?

Exposure Rates Vary Widely Across the Market

High-risk exposure isn’t confined to fringe or obviously problematic exchanges. Some major, licensed exchanges still sit well above the market benchmark for high-risk exposure. See where the outliers begin, how far they go, and what thae market average leaves out.

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  • Largest exchange
  • Ranked #2–5
  • Ranked #6–10
  • Remaining 89 exchanges
Share of high-risk exposure by exchange rank · 99 exchanges · 2021–2025

High-Risk Exposure Differs in Scale, Concentration, and Context

The report examines:

  • Concentration across the largest exchanges
  • Absolute exposure vs. exposure relative to liquidity
  • Extreme exposure-rate outliers
  • Exposure associated with licensed jurisdictions
  • MiCA-authorised exchanges: historical exposure

Five Years — Several Major Shifts in Where Risk Comes From

Sanctions
Fraud
Hacks
Darknet
Terrorist Financing
Illicit Services

Fraud and Hacks dominated risky inflows in 2021. By 2025, other categories started to dominate the market. The report tracks which categories grew, which declined, and which now account for the largest share of exchange exposure.

How Many Hops Separate Exchanges From High-Risk Activity?
The report traces identifiable high-risk exposure within five blockchain hops and compares how far it sat from centralized exchanges over time and across different risk categories. See how exposure depth changed between 2021 and 2025 — and which risk categories moved closer or farther away.
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METHODOLOGY: HOW THE BENCHMARK WAS BUILT

Five years of on-chain activity across major centralized exchanges, analyzed using
one consistent framework for measuring high-risk exposure.

Study scope
99 centralized exchanges · 2021–2025 · BTC, ETH and USDT on Tron

Tracing
Risky inflows and outflows were traced to identified high-risk sources and destinations within five blockchain hops.

Risk categories
Sanctions · Fraud · Hacks · Darknet · Terrorist Financing · Illicit Services · Other

Benchmark calculation
High-risk exposure was measured against the corresponding exchange liquidity to calculate comparable inflow and outflow rates.

Exposure depth
Depth measures the number of hops between a high-risk entity and an exchange. Average depth is value-weighted.

Licensing analysis
Licensed-jurisdiction exposure was estimated using exchange website traffic by geography. MiCA status was assessed separately in August 2026.

Our Clients

FAQ

What is Global Ledger?

Global Ledger is a Swiss blockchain analytics company delivering fast, end-to-end AML compliance and investigation tools. Founded in 2019, we support over 2,000 digital assets and manage a database of over 700 million attributed addresses, updated daily. We perform 250,000 AML checks and monitor 30 million wallets every day. With an average response time of just 500ms and private server deployment options, Global Ledger combines speed, scale, and security.

Which blockchains does Global Ledger analyse?

Currently, the following blockchains are supported: 

  • Bitcoin (BTC) 
  • Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) 
  • Litecoin (LTC) 
  • Ethereum (ETH), including top tokens 
  • Tron (TRX), including top tokens
  • Binance Coin (BNB) 
  • Polygon (MATIC) 
  • Arbitrum (ARB) 
  • Base (ETH) 
  • Avalanche (AVAX) 
  • Moonbeam (GLMR) 
  • Polkadot (DOT) 
  • Solana (SOL)
  • TON.
How is the GL Score calculated?

The GL Score is a number from 0 to 100 that shows the degree of risk: low, medium, and high. Each score is represented by a corresponding color: green indicates low risk, yellow indicates medium risk, and red — high risk. The risk score is derived from the assessment of the riskiness of sources contributing to a requested address or transaction.

To calculate the score, the algorithm analyzes incoming transactions, assesses the risk of identified sources, and calculates a score on a scale from 0 to 100. This score provides an indication of the potential level of risk associated with the address or transaction based on the evaluated sources and their associated activities. Learn more about risk score calculation from our blog article.

What are your data sources?

The Global Ledger team regularly collects and constantly analyses publicly available information, open data from the top blockchains, replenishes the internal information base by conducting its own investigations, as well as data purchased from reliable vendors.

What if I need help ASAP?

Our support team stays in touch 24/7 to provide clients with the most comfortable service and experience in case of unexpected hacks or cyberattacks. Please send your request with a brief description of your case to contact@globalledger.io, and our manager will reach you shortly.