The Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) launched a Crypto and International Security Taskforce on 24 September to study how cryptoassets are reshaping global security, with funding support from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The body will bring together senior government officials, law enforcement and regulatory authorities, researchers, and private sector experts.
Why RUSI is acting now
RUSI argues the work is urgent. Its researchers estimate that sanctioned entities received $104 billion in crypto during 2025, a 694% year-on-year increase, while organised crime groups move billions in illicit proceeds through crypto and exploit regulatory gaps, according to the taskforce page. The Financial Action Task Force has separately warned that criminal networks could develop their own stablecoins designed to resist freezing and seizure. RUSI says generative AI is accelerating malicious activity faster than it can be investigated, while nation-states are plugging into illicit crypto supply chains originally built for cybercriminals. The risks are concrete: U.S. authorities recently sanctioned the Iranian exchange BitBank for moving hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
What the taskforce will examine
The taskforce will hold a series of meetings covering three areas: mapping how illicit actors use crypto for organised crime, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion and political interference; assessing the regulatory, law enforcement and industry tools available to counter that use; and examining legitimate applications such as civil society and humanitarian aid. Findings from each meeting will feed into a final set of practical recommendations for policymakers, and the taskforce will hold a capstone conference to share them with a wider audience, ahead of a special session at RUSI’s SIFMANet Summit in London in December 2026 focused on crypto’s use in sanctions circumvention.
What the leaders said
“As crypto becomes further embedded in the toolkit of criminal networks and hostile states, understanding both the risks and the legitimate uses has never been more urgent,” said Tom Keatinge, Director of the CFS. Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, added that “cryptoassets are transparent,” and that “a more transparent financial system can be a safer one.” The funding partner’s research has tracked the threat in practice, including a 420% surge in blockchain dead drops used to deliver malware. Kinga Redlowska, Head of CFS Europe, framed the issue around access to money: “When access to money is used as an instrument of repression, financial autonomy becomes a matter of security.”
