Our Managing Director and CSO, Una Softic, joinedWebX2025 Asia’s largest Web3 conference moderating a panel on how crypto-enabled cybercrime has evolved from a financial nuisance into a top-tier national security threat, now supercharged by AI.
She was joined by a genuinely formidable panel: Beju Shah (Bank for International Settlements, Nordic Regional Innovation Hub), Dr. Sungyong Kang (INTERPOL Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre), Dr. Arda Akartuna (Elliptic, APAC Crypto Threat Intelligence), and Carole House (former White House advisor; CEO, Penumbra Strategies).
What we discussed
AI and crypto are amplifying each other’s best and worst traits. Carole House framed it memorably: blockchain’s transparency could help solve AI’s black-box problem, while AI could help crypto close its scalability and compliance gaps. But the same convergence is already being weaponized with AI-generated money laundering, deepfake scams, and synthetic identity fraud are no longer hypothetical, they’re active.
The criminal arsenal is now AI-powered. Dr. Akartuna noted that most crypto crime isn’t technically sophisticated. It’s opportunistic, exploiting the sheer number of blockchains now available to hide and launder funds across chains. Elliptic can now trace cross-chain activity across 56 blockchains, but criminals are openly advertising AI-enabled scam tools, deepfake kits, and chatbot fraud services, with an estimated $30 billion or more in crypto flowing through these illicit marketplaces.
Jurisdiction, not technology, is the bigger obstacle. Dr. Kang was direct: tracing the money is often technically possible. The harder problem is that virtual asset transactions are borderless while law enforcement remains bound by national sovereignty and mutual legal assistance processes that take far too long. Victims frequently don’t even know which country their funds moved to, which makes filing a report to the right jurisdiction close to impossible.
Security fundamentals are still being skipped. House pointed out that this year’s largest crypto heist in history barely came up in conversation at industry conference, a sign that basic security investment (key management, wallet controls, code audits) still isn’t treated as the priority it should be.
Traceability is a feature, not a bug; but privacy tech is coming regardless. The panel agreed that as privacy-enhancing technologies mature, the industry needs governance frameworks (tiered permissions, discoverability standards) built in from the start, not bolted on after enforcement problems emerge.
Why we were on that stage
Intertangible works on intersection of emerging technology, regulatory complexity, and the practical frameworks that let institutions, regulators, and innovators actually talk to each other. Moderating a conversation between a central bank innovation hub, INTERPOL, a leading blockchain analytics firm, and a former White House advisor is a natural extension of our cross-jurisdictional advisory work.
The takeaway we’d underline: following the money in 2025 needs a combination of smarter regulation, better forensic tools, and deeper international cooperation, moving at the same speed as the threat.
Watch the full session: youtube.com/watch?v=0YkloSC4_R8