The cryptocurrency industry has been in existence for more than a decade now. In these years, there have been several crimes and illegal activities that have seen billions of dollars of crypto assets being seized by law enforcement agencies. A small portion of these funds are auctioned, but the rest continues to pile up. In a bid to make sorting of these seized assets easier, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis is launching a new service.
Dubbed the Asset Realization Program, the new service lets authorities track, custody, and sell cryptocurrencies associated with a crime after their capture. Duncan Hoffman, EMEA general manager at Chainalysis, said in a statement:
“Chainalysis created an end-to-end solution for track and trace, pre-seizure planning, handling, storing, realizing, and monitoring assets seized by law enforcement.”
The government agencies unload their crypto on the public via semi-regular forfeiture auctions. These sales often raise tens of millions of dollars for the government. But the U.S. Marshals Service, which runs those auctions have been looking for a solution to help it manage and dispose of the forfeited digital assets.
The program is expected to help the company’s clientele in multiple ways including filing and selling confiscated digital funds and legally bringing the once-illegal funds back into the market, among other things.
Billions of dollars worth of Crypto seized
Over the span of the past few months, there have been multiple minor and high-profile crimes that have resulted in significant amounts of crypto assets being seized.
Just last week, the U.S. Department of Justice seized $25 million in digital currencies that were garnered by a $200 million pyramid scheme operating in Brazil.
Prior to that, Federal officials also seized millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency that would otherwise be used to finance terrorist activities.
Most recently, nearly $1 billion of crypto funds connected with Silk Road, an infamous drug operation shut down seven years ago, was seized by the Department of Justice after an identified hacked tried moving the funds. Chainalysis has also worked with authorities in this case.
Chainalysis’s Asset Realization Program primarily targets government agencies and also insolvency practitioners, but in general, the program is open to anyone interested.
As a part of the program, the company has joined hands with Asset Reality, a company already working with confiscated assets. Asset Reality will collaborate with Chainalysis on various parts of the program including the sale of confiscated funds.
