July 2022 The Chainalysis 2022 State of Cryptocurrency Investigations Survey The cryptocurrency outlook for the North American public sectorExecutive summary Cryptocurrency presents unique challenges to the public sector. On the law enforcement side, cryptocurrency is touching all forms of crime: drugs, theft, fraud, money laundering — you name it. But cryptocurrency cases differ significantly from those involving traditional finance, and require new tools and methodologies to solve. From regulators’ perspective, cryptocurrency has grown from a niche hobby to a trillion-dollar asset class in under a decade, bringing with it concerns over consumer protection, market manipulation, AML/CTF enforcement, and more. Those problems are one reason Chainalysis exists. We work with the public sector to make the complexity of cryptocurrency simple, and help agencies achieve their objectives with crypto as easily as they can with fiat – if not more so. But every so often, we need a temperature check to confirm we’re on the right track. That’s why, for the first time, we polled the public sector to better understand their outlook on cryptocur- rency: the successes, the challenges, and wh