Stablecoins quickly become a consumer payment vehicle and not only for legitimate transactions. Criminals, like everyone else, prefer to avoid exchange risks because they move large sums of money.
Who can make stables like USDT de Tether and the USDC issued by Circle Internet (CRCL)whose values are fixed 1: 1 to American currency, preferable to bitcoin And other potentially volatile cryptocurrencies said James Smith, the founder of the Blockchain Elliptic analysis company, even if the emitters of the tokens supported in dollars have the capacity to freeze them.
Billions of dollars of stablescoins change hands every day – $ 94 billion in the last 24 hours, according to Coingecko data – hence the need for a product like the new set of reasonable diligence tools of Elliptic, which can examine the portfolios and follow the assets while jumping from one blockchain to the other. Radding companies in the consumer finance, follow -up tools and the dashboard can be applied to stablecoin issuers, such as Tether and Circle, the two largest in industry nearly $ 300 billion, and their main counterparts and distributors.
“It is an interesting and very attractive company to be in the point of view of a bank, because they can have a private company with a billion dollars with whom they are looking for a bank to house,” said Smith in an interview. “So, any sensible bank must think:” How can I make sure that I am able to participate in this while aligning with the regulations as it is today and as it will evolve? “”
A number of large banks that work with transmitters already use the reasonable diligence product of the stablecoin elliptic transmitter, although Smith cannot reveal who these financial institutions, he said.
The product is relevant for all stablecoin issuers operating today, not only the main ones, said Smith.
“We are not able to choose the winners. Obviously, the issuers with the greatest circulation of tokens will see the most activity. TETHER has more activity and therefore the absolute quantity of things will be higher, inevitably, because there is more activity in the attachment than in a circle,” said Smith.
The USDT, the industry leader, has $ 168 billion in circulation tokens, more than double n ° 2, UDSC. From there, the numbers are rushed.
In terms of particular regions and blockchains that host a harmful activity, “Southeast China / Asia-USDT on Tron is very popular,” he said. The Blockchain Tron was founded in 2014 by Justin Sun and shelters more than $ 78 billion in the USDT, the largest destination after 85 billion dollars in Ethereum, according to the Tether website.
Regarding the fight against crime, most stablecoin issuers have the capacity to freeze or black list the specific portfolio addresses, preventing them from transferring or buying the stablecoins they hold. This feature is generally integrated into intelligent contracts which also allow transmitters to revoke the approvals previously granted and to burn or enter tokens, said Smith.
Last month, the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a joint Tron initiative, Tether and the blockchain analysis company, TRM Labs, said that it had frozen more than $ 250 million in criminal assets less than a year after starting.
“Elliptic investigators have often observed illicit actors quickly converting their assets into stablescoins non -freelance or indigenous active ingredients during the first stages of money laundering to avoid disturbances,” said Smith.
The reasonable diligence application of elliptic issuers differs from other blockchain analysis tools which are static, heavy inquiry and often require specialized skills to use it, according to Smith.
“It offers a configurable dashboard rather than an investigation tool, provides personalized grouping and dynamic historical information to show how risk changes over time and is designed to integrate in a transparent manner in the workflows of financial institutions with flexibility and confidentiality,” said Smith in an email.
