People use mixers/tumblers as an attempt to preserve privacy when transacting with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by obfuscating their money trail. These services typically do not require Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, and they are primarily used to anonymize fund transfers between services. This might lead to the logical conclusion that mixers are almost exclusively…
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Bitcoin and blockchain technologies are sparking innovation in financial technology (FinTech), but they do have a dark side. Criminals can use bitcoin for illegal activities and attempt to hide their ill-gotten gains, hoping law enforcement will not track the funds through the bitcoin transaction chain. They also steal huge quantities of cryptocurrency—nearly US$1 billion, according…
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Treasury working closely with the IRS for examination Some surprising facts regarding the state of the cryptocurrency environment recently came from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Speaking in August 2018 at the Chicago-Kent Block (Legal) Tech Conference, FinCEN’s Director, Kenneth Blanco, shed light on the agency’s approach to virtual currency and…
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Recently released research by CipherTrace has been making the news partly because of some surprising stats. For instance, The Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report 2018 Q2 reveals that theft of cryptocurrencies from exchanges skyrocketed in the first half of this year to three times the level seen for the whole of 2017. For all of 2018, these…
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CipherTrace CEO Leads SINET Panel that Includes New SEC ‘Crypto Czar’ On June 7, 2018, at the SINET Innovation Summit in New York, CipherTrace CEO Dave Jevans sat down with crypto asset experts and thought leaders for a discussion of the current and future state of cryptocurrencies. Topics ranged from fostering virtual currencies as mainstream…
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CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Threat Bulletin The European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) https://www.eugdpr.org), which takes effect on May 25, 2018, will negatively impact the overall security of the Internet and will also inadvertently aid cybercriminals. By restricting access to critical ICANN WHOIS information, the new law will significantly hinder investigations into cybercrime, cryptocurrency theft,…
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Coinbase’s Response To New York AG’s Request Reveals Shocking Cost of Compliance In April, New York Attorney General’s office announced that it’s looking into thirteen major exchanges, including Coinbase, Gemini Trust, and Bitfinex. Cryptocurrency exchanges have notoriously been subject to robberies, trading capacity problems, and other glitches. Then in February, some Coinbase users began to…
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REINING IN THE WILD EAST Almost five years ago, an event in Japan rocked people’s trust in Bitcoin. Customers of Mt. Gox lost 650,000 bitcoins (worth about $437 million at the time, or $8.5 billion at today’s price), which ultimately shuttered the exchange. That now-infamous implosion was not an isolated incident. Japan has a long…
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Monday, March 19, 2018, President Trump issued the first presidential cryptocurrency order showing that this administration won’t allow cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions. According to Time magazine, Russia played a key role in helping Venezuela to launch the Petro coin and ICO to help the country avoid US economic sanctions. The Executive Order is in response to recent actions…
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Applied Cryptography Innovation is a Cambrian Explosion that will Transform the Next 50 Years of Civilization $4B was funneled through ICOs into applied cryptography research and blockchain development in 2017 and early 2018. Even more, funding has been provided from cryptocurrency and venture capital investors in pursuit of innovation. The dramatic market capitalization increases in cryptocurrencies…
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