Publishing our inaugural AML ranking last year was a unique opportunity to assess the crypto sector's approach to combatting financial crime – both from an on-chain and off-chain perspective.
how_ _By comparing this year's ranking of the sector's leading players against 2023, this report provides a unique and in-depth look at who’s improved, who hasn’t, and why.
Click here to download the Leaderboards 2025 Annual Review and find out who makes the Top 200_
**In short, the findings are extremely encouraging. Leaderboards 2025 shows a vastly improving sector from a risk perspective. Average scores are higher on every core metric, demonstrating widespread improvements in AML controls and an overall decrease in regulatory action. The four key trends we’ve highlighted for this year are:
Market-wide AML Improvements 1. Greater Focus on Regulation 2. The average AML score for the Top 200 VASPs this year was 82.75. This is a marked improvement on last year’s 79.17 and a reflection of a generally improving picture for the crypto sector from an AML perspective.
The sector's focus on AML is also helping to address regulatory concerns, a by-product of which has been increased adoption and a steady erosion of the perception of crypto as a high-risk asset class.
This has contributed to a drop in theft from hacks and exploits in 2024 versus 2023, with the average value of notable hacks last year falling to $38.6 million.
Exchange Transparency & Financial Health**
UAE-headquartered Deribit retains top spot in the ST index as the most transparent trading venue. Indeed, average ST scores increased by around seven percent over the course of 2024.
Our findings show that venues with their own token score poorly in asset quality – arguably mirroring some of the conditions which led to FTX’s collapse in 2022, namely a balance sheet dominated by a self-created asset. Currently, exchanges with their own tokens make up the bottom four places in the Blue Chip Score index, and none make it into the Top 10. Those with holdings in highly liquid blue chip assets like Bitcoin, USDC and Ethereum dominate the top spots. The report provides Blue Chip Scores for 30 of the sector's largest exchanges.
A snapshot of Hoptrail's Blue Chip Score_
Crypto is fast-moving. And it can be difficult to keep up with everything that happens.
We hope you enjoy reading this annual review.
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