Ryze Recap 6/8: Coinbase and Increasing Govt Involvement in Bitcoin
The biggest Bitcoin news in 2 minutes or less. Presented by Ryze 🚀
It’s Monday, June 8. Here’s a little Monday Motivation to jump-start your week:
“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.”- Albert Einstein
We’ve got one quick story for you today.
Coinbase Feeds Increasing Government Appetite for Crypto Surveillance Tools
In February 2019, Coinbase acquired Neutrino, a blockchain analytics and intelligence firm, and further developed its technology to create Coinbase Analytics, a new division of Coinbase aimed at providing blockchain surveillance tools to government agencies. Over the weekend, we learned that Coinbase Analytics is securing contracts from the DEA and IRS. According to documents released by the two government agencies, “This is the least expensive tool on the market, and has the most features for the money…[and] has enhanced law enforcement sensitive capabilities that are not currently found in other tools.”
Some context:
With the exception of privacy-focused tokens, most crypto-assets, including Bitcoin, are pseudonymous, not anonymous. Identities can be linked to wallet addresses. Transactions involving those wallets are publicly broadcasted onto the blockchain.
Blockchain intelligence firms use this publically available data, mixed with private data, to trace transactions and funds back to individuals/entities.
Why it matters:
The US Government has been paying more attention to crypto-assets including Bitcoin. Trump tweeted negatively about Bitcoin last June, and the Treasury Department warned that “significant” new Bitcoin regulations are on their way.
The US Government seems concerned about the use of crypto-assets by countries such as Iran to evade US-imposed sanctions. Using blockchain analytics tools may enable the US to crack down on individuals and agencies skirting around these sanctions.
Coinbase Analytics is vying for a piece of the pie along with Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence firm with over 82 government contracts. We reported this earlier this year. Though the initial Coinbase Analytics contracts are for less than $250K, Chainalysis has netted over $10.7M in government contracts, making blockchain analytics a lucrative sector.
That’s all for today! We’ll be back tomorrow with another Ryze Recap. Subscribe below for Ryze Recaps delivered straight to your inbox 📥
DEA + IRS sounds scary.. and then we realize two democrat income tax slavery forefathers: woodrow wilson died of a stroke after inking his income tax slavery law, and franklin d. roosevelt died of a stroke after inking a law to raise income tax slavery to 90%. we have no idea how many of the smaller turds got flushed... income tax slavery is the real reason for the deep poverty and homelessness across the usa. its not the people who are the criminals in this situation. if u happen to work @ the IRS, u might considering doing something else w your life rather take the risks supporting income tax slavery.
Good read Abhay