Blender, the cryptocurrency mixer sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in May 2022, was “highly likely” relaunched as Sinbad, according to risk management firm Elliptic. In a Feb. 13 report, Elliptic said its analysis of Sinbad suggested that the crypto mixer was likely a rebrand of Blender as well as having “the same individual or group responsible for it.” According to the firm, Sinbad was behind laundering roughly $100 million in Bitcoin (BTC) for North Korea’s hacking group Lazarus. Elliptic said following U.S. authorities cracking down on crypto mixers — as OFAC …

Cryptocurrency mixing services are a divisive subject in the industry. Some advocate for the privacy-enabling features of these protocols while others maintain that they are mainly used for illicit means. For platforms like Tornado Cash, the mainstream verdict is “guilty as charged.” The infamous decentralized mixing protocol was sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August 2022, essentially making it illegal for anyone to make use of the service. Tornado Cash continues to be a contentious topic and one of its developers, Alexey Pertsev, controversially remains in detention in the Netherlands while investigators look to …

Improved blockchain analytics will become increasingly important to combat the use of cross-chain bridges for illicit means, which are estimated to surpass $10 billion in value by 2025. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic forecasts a 60% rise in the value of illicit cryptocurrency laundered through cross-chain bridges from $4.1 billion in June 2022 to $6.5 billion next year. This figure is projected to double midway through the decade. Cross-chain crime has been a major talking point in 2022 with over $2 billion fleeced in hacks targeting cross-chain bridges. Aside from these bridges and their contracts being targeted, these bridges have also …

Cryptocurrency risk management firm Elliptic has released a report suggesting that scammers stole more than $100 million worth of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, starting in 2021. In its NFTs and Financial Crime report released on Wednesday, Elliptic said crypto users had been the victims of roughly $100.6 million worth of scams related to NFTs in the 13-month period from July 2021 to July 2022. The firm reported that although the market downturn had caused the value of NFTs to “slump”, scammers stole the most tokens in July 2022 — estimated to be 4,647 assets — and the most value in …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols continue to be targeted by hackers, with Curve Finance becoming the latest platform to be compromised after a DNS hijacking incident. The automated market maker warned users not to use the front end of its website on Aug. 9 after the incident was flagged online by a number of members of the wider cryptocurrency community. While the exact attack mechanism is still under investigation, the consensus is that attackers managed to clone the Curve Finance website and rerouted the DNS server to the fake page. Users that attempted to make use of the platform then had …

Cryptocurrency risk management firm Elliptic has announced a $60 million Series C funding round led by Evolution Equity Partners and supported by a panoply of venture capital firms including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, as well as existing investors AlbionVC, Digital Currency Group, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital and SBI Group, amongst others. Elliptic's history of funding charts a consistent increase, with their debut funding raise in 2016 totaling $5 million, while their second raise across late 2019 to early 2020 resulted in an additional $28 million. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in London, Elliptic captures analytical data from the blockchain sector …

Major Bitcoin (BTC) ATM operators in the United States are joining forces to fight illicit activity related to Bitcoin ATMs. Bitcoin ATM operators DigitalMint and Coinsource have launched the Cryptocurrency Compliance Cooperative (CCC), a new association that aims to establish compliance standards for the Bitcoin ATM industry. The new compliance effort has launched with support from major blockchain analytics firms, such as Chainalysis and Elliptic, among its 15 initial members. The CCC is now encouraging participation from cash-based crypto money services businesses, regulators, financial institutions, as well as non-state and law enforcement agencies. The association specifically targets Bitcoin ATMs to …

According to a report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, unregistered securities offerings represent more than half of all crypto fines handed out by U.S. regulators. In Elliptic’s June 21 Sanctions Compliance in Cryptocurrencies report, the firm's co-founder and Chief Scientist, Dr. Tom Robinson writes that U.S. regulators have handed out $2.5 billion in fines for crypto-related violations since 2014. Out of the total $2.5 billion, unregistered securities offerings accounted for $1.38 billion worth of penalties, or 55.19% of all fines dished out. Fraud was the second biggest crypto violation found in the report, accounting for 37.12% or $928 million worth …

Global banking institutions have been expressing more interest in Bitcoin (BTC) as the cryptocurrency consistently breaks new all-time highs, according to a new report. Tom Robinson, co-founder of major British crypto firm Elliptic, told The Telegraph on Wednesday that his company saw a massive surge in Bitcoin-related inquiries from global banks. The executive noted a wave of Bitcoin-associated demand from United States-based banking institutions over the past two months. According to Robinson, several financial institutions in the U.S. “are seriously considering launching some type of cryptocurrency service.” British banks were the most reserved in terms of the demand’s uptick, the …

FinTech company CoolBitX may have a solution for countries that have not yet complied with the Financial Action Task Force’s “travel rule”. According to a statement from CoolBitX shared with Cointelegraph on July 21, the blockchain security company announced it would be partnering with cryptocurrency forensics firm Elliptic to address anti-money laundering (AML) regulations for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in accordance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) travel rule. VASPs will have access to both Sygna Bridge — the solution proffered by CoolBitX — and Elliptic’s crypto transaction and wallet screening tools to comply with the travel rule’s …

Per an April 13 announcement, Huobi (HT) Global has launched Star Atlas, an on-chain analytics tool to monitor illicit cryptocurrency transactions that could work in tandem with similar tools. Past criticism The tool should help Huobi address some of the past criticism it had received. Chainalysis’ 2020 State of Crypto Crime Report stated: “Binance and Huobi lead all exchanges in illicit Bitcoin received by a significant margin.” Ciara Sun, VP of global business at Huobi Group, explained the functionality of the new tool to Cointelegraph: “Star Atlas is an on-chain monitoring tool to monitor cryptocurrency transactions to identify and detect …

Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, the venture arm of the fourth-largest bank in the U.S., is contributing $5 million to Elliptic’s Series B funding round. According to a Feb. 13 press release, the investment will help the company build products for large financial institutions. The latest investment brings Elliptic’s Series B raise to more than $28 million. Previous investors include Japan’s SBI Group and Santander InnoVentures, an investment branch of the Spanish bank. The additional resources will be used to fuel Elliptic’s expansion in Asia. Additionally, the company hopes to accelerate development of Elliptic Discovery, a compliance solution for banks. The …