As the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, blockchain watchdog companies have discussed and implemented ways to prevent sanctioned countries from using digital assets. Last week, Chainalysis revealed screening tools for crypto firms aimed at complying with international sanctions. On Monday, Elliptic’s CEO published a blog post describing the company’s work dealing with clearance theft.
Elliptical CEO speaks on the company’s ‘work to combat acceptance theft in crypto’
This week, Simon Maini, CEO of blockchain surveillance firm Elliptic, published a blog post detailing how the company deals with theft of approvals associated with crypto assets. Manny’s blog post emphasized that “the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that powerful technologies such as cryptocurrencies can be used in both positive and negative ways.”
The Elliptic CEO gives details of how funds were raised for the Ukrainian government and other Ukraine-based NGOs. On the other hand, Manny’s blog post states that digital assets have been used by Russian-backed forces. Elliptical Executive says:
There is also a real risk of Russia using crypto assets to circumvent sanctions through state-sponsored cybercrime, concealment of funds, and even crypto mining.
Maini points out that Elliptic has “redoubled” its efforts to help the fintech industry “stop the evasion of sanctions by Russia.” So far, Elliptic has managed to identify over 400 Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) that accept the ruble for digital currency trading.
Elliptical links ’15 million crypto addresses’ to Russian criminal activity, ‘several thousand crypto addresses’ linked to sanctioned Russian actors
In addition, the firm has “directly linked more than 15 million crypto addresses to criminal activity with a nexus in Russia.” On top of all that, Elliptic has managed to flag a large number of cryptocurrency addresses that are allegedly linked to sanctioned Russians. Elliptical CEO says:
We have identified several million crypto addresses associated with approved actors based in Russia. It goes beyond those on the sanctions list to include other addresses that we have been able to associate with these actors through our own analysis.
At the time of writing, the Russian ruble is the 23rd most used trading pair against the crypto asset Bitcoin (BTC), but against Tether (USDT), the ruble represents the 15th most used trading pair USDT. Is. In addition to Elliptic, Chainalysis revealed five days ago that the blockchain monitoring firm was launching two tools to help crypto companies deal with entities evading approval.
Blockchain monitoring firm is ‘actively investigating crypto asset wallet’
Furthermore, in a recent blog post published during the first week of March, popular crypto exchange Coinbase revealed that it had blacklisted over 25,000 crypto addresses associated with Russian individuals or entities. Elliptic’s announcement stemming from the CEO’s blog post on Monday highlighted that the company not only flagged several million crypto addresses, but it is also monitoring crypto asset wallets.
Elliptic CEO Manny concluded, “We are actively investigating crypto asset wallets believed to be linked to Russian authorities and oligarchs.” “We are cooperating with government agencies and other organizations to ensure that those responsible for enabling the invasion of Ukraine cannot use crypto assets to hide their funds.”
What do you think of the Elliptic CEO’s blog post about a company flagging millions of crypto addresses linked to Russia-based sanctioned actors? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, WikiCommons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation or recommendation or endorsement of an offer to buy or sell any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.