Blockchain investigations firm Chainalysis has added support for 10 more ERC-20 tokens, expanding the reach of its anti-money laundering tracking service.
New coins include Basic Attention Token (BAT), OmiseGO (OMG), Dai (DAI), Maker (MKR) and 0x (ZRX).
The additions bring Chainalysis' compliance, regulatory and tracking software – a favorite among federal investigators – to a larger swath of ERC-20 tokens. ERC-20 is crypto shorthand for “Ethereum Request for Comment” – a common set of rules governing tokens issued on the ethereum blockchain.
Chainalysis "is a de-facto federal standard,” said Casey Bohn, a crypto-crimes specialist with the federally funded National White Collar Crime Center. “That’s what they seem to be using most” to analyze and track crypto transactions.
Jonathan Levin, Chainalysis' co-founder and chief strategy officer, said the additions help regulators trace illicit tokens – especially ERC-20 tokens on the ethereum network, which he said has become a popular hotbed for hackers to exploit.
In early 2019, hackers cleared out an estimated $16 million in ether and ERC-20 tokens from the now-defunct Cryptopia exchange.
ERC-20 tokens continue to gain popularity, putting pressure on exchanges to list them and increasing the chance bad actors try to steal them. This, Levin said, made the addition of ERC-20 tokens a priority.
Levin said:
The eagle-eyed AML software is popular among crypto exchanges facing stringent global money-laundering safeguards. Last week, U.S. exchange Bittrex began using Chainalysis KYT software to monitor suspicious transactions, joining Binance.
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Chainalysis will double its crypto coverage by the end of the year. It plans on adding XRP, ZCash and Doge, among others.
Update: this article has been updated to reflect that 10 ERC-20 tokens have been added.
Chainalysis branding image via CoinDesk archives