Crypto criminals are increasingly hurting to avoid detection, so that assets between a multitude of blockchain ecosystems are moving in an attempt to throw researchers off their track. According to new data from Blockchain analysis company Elliptic, a full 20% of the complex cross-chain investigations are now more than 10 different blockchains.
Elliptic discovered that a third of the complex cross-chain investigations included four or more block chains and were 27% more than five.
Jackson Hull, Chief Technology Officer of Elliptic, said Coindesk that although cross-chain crime existed as long as there have been several block chains, the volume of cross-chain criminality has been “quite dramatic” in the last five years because the costs for changing ecosystems have gone.
Although there are many non-criminal reasons why someone would like to move assets between crypto ecosystems, Hull said that it is also a common obfuscation tactics for hackers and other criminals who want to launder money and cover their traces.
Hull said that Elliptic recently expanded its coverage to support 50 block chains, which means that researchers use the software from Elliptic can easily trace funds that move between one of the covered blockchains, or one of the “300 -plus” bridges Elliptic’s software support. Hull added that Elliptic is able to add a new blockchain to its coverage in just three weeks.
“The most important, risky studies are those [bad] The actor tries to launder or hide the money or hide so that they are increasingly jumping over these block chains, “Hull said.” So that’s really what it drives. “
Elliptic helped American law enforcement in their recent removal of sanctioned Russian crypto exchange Garantex, which was popular with ransomware gangs and Russian oligarchs who wanted to avoid sanctions. After the Takedown, the exchange tried to rebrand as Grinex.