At the end of last month, Bitfury Group, a company specializing in blocking technologies , introduced its Crystal functionality, which is designed to detect and investigate illegal activities in the Bitcoin network . The update will enable law enforcement officials and private specialists to track suspicious money transfers to the final account or point of sale of digital currencies. Presented the Crystal presentation and told about its main characteristics, a member of the Bitfury Group development team.
Due to the fact that the blocking technologies still cause some suspicion on the part of representatives of governments, state regulators and enterprises, as of today, it is not possible to use crypto-currency as a full-fledged means of payment. That's why the Bitfury Group developers decided to work on a product that will increase the level of trust in the crypto currency industry.
According to the main idea of blocking technologies, the BTC blocker contains all the data about all the operations that have ever been performed. Also these data are in direct access from all network members. The mechanisms of the Crystal provide for downloading and updating all the information of the block, as well as the accumulation of all freely available data on the holders of the digital currency.
It is noteworthy that all data is processed in such a way that all information was subsequently available for further analysis and provided to users in the optimal format. All analysis results are entered in the database.
To determine the level of risk, there are two main criteria:
Firstly, it is confirmed public data about illegal operations of some users of the bitcoin network,
second, the discovery of their operations with other members of the detachment, who are agents of the so-called "darknet"
"For example, if participant A interacted with a known high-risk participant B, participant A also" falls under suspicion ", that is, our algorithm assigns to him an increased level of risk. The presence or absence of risk is displayed in the application interface using red and green labels, respectively. At the same time, Crystal is an analytical tool and does not give estimates of the legitimacy of transactions. To consider this or that transaction as doubtful or illegal is the case of the law enforcement bodies of the relevant jurisdiction, "the Bitfury Group explained.
Interest in the service is shown by cyber-units of power structures
There are two options for monitoring data using Crystal: the user of the product can either do this on his own or use a variety of programs (the Crystal service includes APIs for interacting with the analytic systems of the user's PC). Crystal does not have access to collecting personal information.
The creators of the product mention that the basic heuristic algorithms on which information analysis is based can not by themselves ensure 100% success. In this regard, you should not react categorically to all the conclusions of Crystal - a lot still depends on the user.
Also, product developers emphasize the users' attention to the fact that the company's team is constantly in the process of developing improvements and reacts to all the error reports in the work.
"The complete destruction of darknet would be too idealistic. But we are sure that Crystal will definitely complicate life for criminals. We see interest in our tool from the financial sector (banks, consulting companies, financial regulators), as well as cyber-units of power structures. Crystal will also be useful to companies that conduct their business using crypto-currency, as a demonstration of state regulators of sources of origin and the purposes of using crypto currency in their operating or investment activities. If we are talking about end-users, we prepared Crystal for two main groups of potential users: analysts working in the departments for combating illegal financial transactions, and investigators involved in the investigation of crimes in which bitcoin was used. In addition, we welcome the integration of Crystal with other analytical products, such as KYC solutions. In them, Crystal can act as a source of analytical information, "- said representatives of Bitfury Group.
The main goal of the Crystal developers is to find a solution that will allow representatives of investment companies, financial institutions, regulators and government statements to relate to the blocking technologies in general and to bitcoin in particular. Crystal allows each user to easily and conveniently track all the actions taking place in the network of bitcoins.
"Understanding what is happening gives rise to confidence, and confidence stimulates use. We are confident that, in the long term, the widespread introduction of crypto-currency, in particular bitcoin, into the global economy should be beneficial to all: holders of the crypto-currency, business and states, "the service founders summed up.