Fortune Staff
2018年4月5日财富办公室
You can think of Chainalysis as a blockchain detective. The New York-based firm is best known for its forensic tools that help law enforcement agencies track the movement of bitcoin, but it also helps financial financial firms keep tabs on who is using digital currencies.
On Thursday, Chainalysis said it had raised $16 million from Benchmark in a move the firm says will help it ramp up its sales efforts and expand the number of cryptocurrencies it tracks. The Series A funding round will also see Benchmark’s Sarah Tavel, a Pinterest veteran and longtime crypto authority, join the Chainalysis board.
The company also used the occasion to unveil a new product called Know Your Transaction, which will make it easier for banks and exchanges to track suspicious activity and comply with anti-money laundering laws.
Blockchains, which create permanent transaction records across multiple computers, by their nature do not reveal detailed personal information about who is sending digital money to whom—only aliases. Nonetheless, Chainalysis is able to use statistical techniques to infer whether given transactions are likely to be tied to criminal activity.
While the company initially tailored its services for law enforcement, it soon adapted them to serve as compliance tools for banks and other financial firms. More recently, it says exchanges—where people buy and sell cryptocurrency—are now its fastest growing customer base.
According to Chainalysis cofounder Jonathan Levin, the recent downturn in the crypto market hasn’t had an impact on demand for its services.
“The business is growing faster than ever. The downturn has actually been good since exchanges are now focused on compliance and risk, and not just trying to onboard their millionth customer in a month,” said Levin in an interview with Fortune.
Levin did not disclose any specific financial figures for Chainalysis but said the company, which was founded in 2014, is already profitable and that revenue grew threefold in the last year. He added that Chainalysis has hundreds of customers.
Tracking New Crypto Coins
Until now, Chainalysis has only focused its forensic work on one blockchain—the first and most famous one, which belongs to Bitcoin. This work has included assisting the IRS to find tax cheats, and producing a highly-cited study, first covered by Fortune, that revealed more than 4 million Bitcoins are lost forever. (The total supply will only ever number 21 million).
But as the crypto market has matured, more people are using a host of other types of digital money besides Bitcoin. In response, Chainalysis says it will offer new forensic tools to track more than 10 other types of cryptocurrency, beginning on Thursday with Bitcoin Cash, which launched last summer as a spinoff to Bitcoin.
Chainalysis, whose competitors include UK rival Elliptic, hasn’t specified which other cryptocurrencies will be next, though Levin said they will be those with “bigger economic weight.” This is likely to mean that tracking tools for the likes of Ethereum and Litecoin are in the works.
Notably, Levin also said so-called “privacy coins” like Monero and Zcash are unlikely to figure in the new product offerings. Those cryptocurrencies are designed in a way so that individual coins are all but impossible to trace, and are gaining popularity with criminals looking to avoid leaving financial fingerprints.
In regard to ramping up its operations, Chainalysis says it now has 70 employees between offices in Washington, New York, and Copenhagen, and that it expects that number to grow significantly in coming months.
“We see ourselves as the builders of trust between blockchains, banks and governments,” said Levin.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Chainalysis is headquartered in London, not New York.
你可以认为chainalysis为blockchain侦探。这家总部位于纽约的公司最出名的是它的司法工具，帮助执法机构跟踪比特币的移动，但也有助于金融金融公司密切关注使用数字货币的人。上星期四，chainalysis表示已筹集资金在移动公司从基准1600万表示将帮助它扩大它的销售力度和扩大cryptocurrencies它的磁道数。系列A轮融资，也将看到一个benchmark’s莎拉Tavel，Pinterest的老兵和长期的密码权限，加入chainalysis板。该公司还利用这次机会推出了一款名为“知道你的交易”的新产品，它将使银行和交易所更容易追踪可疑活动并遵守反洗钱法。创造永久blockchains，交易记录在多个计算机，由它们的性质没有透露详细的个人信息，谁是谁的唯一别名发送数字货币。尽管如此，chainalysis能够使用统计技术来推断是否给定的交易很可能与犯罪活动。虽然该公司最初为执法部门量身定制了服务，但很快就将其调整为银行和其他金融公司的合规工具。最近，它说交流在人们购买和出售cryptocurrency现在是其增长最快的客户群。据chainalysis创始人Jonathan Levin，在加密市场hasn’t近期的低迷对其服务需求的影响。“the业务增长得更快。经济衰退已经从交易所现在都集中在合规和风险是好的，而不只是试图在他们的第一百万的客户在一个月内，莱文在接受采访时”财富说。莱文没有透露任何具体的财务数据，但表示chainalysis公司，成立于2014，已经实现盈利，在去年收入的三倍增长。他补充说，chainalysis有数以百计的客户。跟踪新密码的硬币，直到现在，chainalysis只有集中鉴定工作的一块环链的第一和最著名的一种，属于比特币。这项工作包括协助国税局发现税务欺诈，并产生一个高度引用的研究，第一次涵盖财富，发现超过400万比特币永远丢失。（总供应量只有2100万）。但随着加密市场的成熟，越来越多的人在使用比特币以外的其他类型的数字货币。对此，Chainalysis表示，它将提供新的法医工具来跟踪超过10其他类型cryptocurrency，比特币的现金在星期四开始，它推出了去年夏天作为一个续集的比特币。chainalysis，其竞争对手包括英国恒大椭圆，指定其他cryptocurrencies将是下一个hasn’t，虽然莱文说他们将那些“bigger经济weight.”这可能意味着Ethereum和Litecoin喜欢在作品的跟踪工具。值得注意的是，莱文还表示，所谓的“privacy coins”像Monero和zcash不大可能在新产品图。这些cryptocurrencies的设计方式，使个人的硬币都无法追踪，并与犯罪分子寻找避免留下指纹的普及金融。关于加快行动，chainalysis说它现在拥有70名员工，在华盛顿、纽约、和哥本哈根的办公室之间，并预计这个数字在未来几个月内显著增长。看到我们之间的信任“we blockchains的建设者，政府和银行的莱文说，”。这个故事的早期版本的错误表示chainalysis总部设在伦敦，而不是纽约。
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