Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, a federal service combating money laundering and terrorist financing, is reportedly planning to build a new analytics platform for tracking privacy-centric cryptocurrencies like Dash and Monero. According to the local news reports, dubbed “Transparent Blockchain,” the new system is designed to track the movement of digital financial assets and identify crypto service providers to fight illicit activity related to digital assets. The new system is able to “partially reduce anonymity” of transactions involving major cryptocurrencies.
The system can also track cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.
According to the news report, the new system can “partially reduce anonymity” of transactions involving major coins like Bitcoin, Ether, Omni, and privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Dash and Monero. The Russian financial regulator has successfully piloted a prototype system to fight drug trafficking. The crypto tracking system was developed in collaboration with a major Russian research institute, the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the report notes. According to preliminary data, Russian “Transparent Blockchain” will require about 760 million rubles ($10.3 million) from the federal budget from 2021 till 2023. The targeted customers of the system reportedly include major financial institutions like Russia’s central bank.
Russia reports higher crypto scams amid the pandemic.
Cybersecurity firms have identified an exponential surge in the cryptocurrency-related scams in Russia that occurred in the first half of this year. Researchers identified 23,000 websites involved with crypto scams that are still active and are targeting new victims in Russia. According to the Kommersant report, which cited research from Kaspersky Labs, the problem is three times greater than during the same period last year. The cybersecurity firms identified different types of crypto scams going around online. Crypto scams have increased amid the ongoing pandemic all over the world.
