A major financial watchdog in Russia is developing a new cryptocurrency analytics tool to trace major cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC) and privacy coins. Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, a federal service combating money laundering and terrorist financing, is reportedly planning to build a new analytics platform for tracking cryptocurrency transactions via artificial intelligence. Dubbed “Transparent Blockchain,” the new system is designed to track the movement of digital financial assets and identify crypto service providers to fight illicit activity related to digital assets, local news agency RBC reported on Aug. 10. According to the report, the new system is able to …
From speculation about its inherent value to theories about it being the payment method of choice for criminals, cryptocurrency is having a tough time keeping a clean name. One of the most common accusations is that cryptocurrencies perpetuate the sale of illicit drugs, a view recently expressed by United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Cointelegraph takes a look at the impact of cryptocurrency on illegal drug sales and whether it should shoulder more of the blame than cash. U.S. government clamps down The watershed moment for the U.S. taking decisive action against illicit drugs being purchased with cryptocurrency happened in …
On May 22, 2019, cryptocurrency mixers (also called tumblers) were front and center on the news cycle, following reports of European authorities shutting down one such service. Law enforcement officials involved said the action was necessitated by reports on Bestmixer.io — i.e., the platform in question that was being used to funnel dirty money via cryptocurrencies. Stakeholders in the crypto industry decried the action, calling it a gross overreach by government agents. They also declared that it set a dangerous precedent, one that could be inimical to cryptography as a whole. In the wake of the shutdown, Vitalik Buterin, the …
The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) crypto regulations will trigger a shift of criminal activity from Bitcoin (BTC) to privacy coins, it has been claimed. Criminals mostly use BTC and ETH to date David Jevans, CEO of major crypto transaction tracking firm CipherTrace, shared his remarks about criminal use of cryptocurrencies at a panel held by blockchain advocacy group, the Chamber of Digital Commerce, on Oct. 21. During the panel, Jevans claimed that well-known cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) are currently the most popular among criminal actors to date due to their good brand name and the ease …
Troubled cryptocurrency exchange WEX.nz has seen its funds frozen by fellow exchange Binance after users claimed the exchange was involved in money laundering, CEO Changpeng Zhao confirmed on social media Oct. 29. In response to an alert by an online trader known as John James on Twitter, Zhao said Binance had quarantined funds sent from wallets associated with WEX. “[T]he identified accounts are frozen, please report to law enforcement and have a case number. We will work with LE [law enforcement],” Zhao wrote in the tweet. “This is part of centralization we hate too, dealing with other exchange's mess (we …