The new Chainalysis program aims to help sort confiscated cryptocurrencies

In the 11 years since the start of the cryptocurrency industry, attackers have used digital assets for a range of illegal activities, from drug payments to money laundering. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis is launching a new service to help authorities track, hold and sell cryptocurrencies associated with crime after their capture. The company calls the initiative its Asset Realization Program.

“Chainalysis has created an end-to-end solution for track and trace, pre-seizure planning, management, archiving, realization and monitoring of assets seized by law enforcement”, Chainalysis general manager of the European, Middle Eastern and African region, Duncan Hoffman, he told Cointelegraph.

With its new program, Chainalysis aims to help clients in a number of ways, including storing and selling confiscated digital funds, shutting down once illegally used assets, and their legal return to the ecosystem, based on feedback. by Hoffman.

In recent years, a number of minor and high-profile crimes have involved cryptocurrencies, including hacks, terrorist financing and other events.

More recently, nearly $ 1 billion worth of crypto funds linked to Silk Road, a notorious drug operation that closed seven years ago, has shifted wallet address positions. The US Department of Justice later filed a motion to wrest control of the funds from an identified hacker, which explains the wallet address transfer. Chainalysis worked with authorities on the case, according to a Chainalysis statement provided to Cointelegraph.