Elliptic, a blockchain analysis provider based in London, has announced that it will support the Ripple (XRP)trade digital currency to monitor electronic transactions. According to a research conducted by Elliptic that was also released this week, an estimation of about $400 million of XRP tokens are tied to illegal transactions.
The risk management system provider for digital currencies, Elliptic, has taken over screening XRP cryptocurrency transactions globally to observe any potentially illicit activities via the virtual coin. The platform states that by value, it now supports over 85% of all digital currency assets. According to CoinMarketCap, it is estimated that currently the XRP cryptocurrency has reached a total market capitalization of $10.8 billion.
XRP’s market value marks it as the third largest cryptocurrency, falling right behind Bitcoin(BTC)trade and Ethereum (ETH)trade. Elliptic experts state that the $400 million worth of illegal activities that surfaced in their research only make up 0.2% of overall XRP transactions, meaning that almost all of Ripple’s transactions have been valid.
Elliptic utilizes blockchain insights and analysis to outline high-risk transactions for its clients when assessing crypto asset risks. The co-founder and chief scientist of the platform, Dr. Tom Robinson, discussed the XRP crypto project by stating that the team began researching the digital asset over a year ago and began to identify hundreds of XRP accounts that were connected to illegal transactions. The activities varied from thefts, scams and illicit sales of stolen credit cards.
He further added that in order to build trust and confidence of financial institutions in the digital economy so they can engage with the ecosystem, Elliptic is committed to shed light on illegal activities as the XRP market grows and criminal use of digital assets would consequently decrease.
Ripple Grows in Asia-Pacific, Mostly through Financial Institutions
Dr. Robinson said that as XRP is emerging and gaining attention in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, particularly with banks and financial institutions. Hence, Elliptic’s anti-money laundering (AML) solutions can hasten the process of adoption in the APAC region and then across the globe, since regulations and frameworks for digital currencies are being developed faster.
The structure of XRP differs greatly from other cryptocurrencies of its kind, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which makes Elliptic’s decision to take over this project a technological challenge. However, to protect their clients from risk, Elliptic experts have created an in-depth understanding of how the shady people behind the illegal transactions of XRP are using it. Such a task requires extracting information through the dark web and observe money laundering patterns.
Elliptic will roll out full support for XRP within the first week of December.
