user138623: I came across the following article

Allen Goldmann, A person is trying to hide $5 million in stolen Bitcoins from a Darknet marketplace, Forbes, November 28, 2022

where some criminal tried to launder stolen 300 bitcoins with mixer "desperately creating new wallet addresses".
There is a lot of forensic techniques which let tracing crypto within same blockchain easily enough, so my question is very simple: why not just convert stolen bitcoin to other crypto based on different blockchain (chain hopping)?
P.S I assume that tracing will be stopped in the point of transfering between blockchains (you transfer from wallet A1 to wallet A2 of blockchain A and get the funds on wallet B1 from wallet B2 belonging blockchain B)

user138300: I believe it's a matter of liquidity, and BTC is the most liquid digital asset right now. In the case of fiat, if you stole US dollars you wouldn't change them to Turkish liras just to be untraceable, you rather find a way to keep the USD.
It's a Forbes article anyway, it could be mainly FUD for people to stay away from "crypto".

138623: <p>I came across the following article</p>
<ul>
<li>Allen Goldmann, <a href="https://forbes.to/2022/11/28/a-person-is-trying-to-hide-5-million-in-stolen-bitcoins-from-a-darknet-marketplace" rel="nofollow noreferrer">A person is trying to hide $5 million in stolen Bitcoins from a Darknet marketplace</a>, Forbes, November 28, 2022</li>
</ul>
<p>where some criminal tried to launder stolen 300 bitcoins with mixer &quot;desperately creating new wallet addresses&quot;.</p>
<p>There is a lot of forensic techniques which let tracing crypto within same blockchain easily enough, so my question is very simple: why not just convert stolen bitcoin to other crypto based on different blockchain (chain hopping)?</p>
<p>P.S I assume that tracing will be stopped in the point of transfering between blockchains (you transfer from wallet A1 to wallet A2 of blockchain A and get the funds on wallet B1 from wallet B2 belonging blockchain B)</p>
 138300: <p>I believe it's a matter of liquidity, and BTC is the most liquid digital asset right now. In the case of fiat, if you stole US dollars you wouldn't change them to Turkish liras just to be untraceable, you rather find a way to keep the USD.
It's a Forbes article anyway, it could be mainly FUD for people to stay away from &quot;crypto&quot;.</p>
