Russian authorities are apparently a thorn in the side of Privacy Coins. Now a new program is to be launched that aims to "significantly reduce" the anonymity of certain transactions.
According to a report by the Russian news service RBC, the Russian government is mobilizing against anonymous Bitcoin transactions. According to Cointelegraph, the new Russian analysis system goes by the name Transparent Blockchain. Behind it is, according to reports, Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service, also known as Rosfinmonitoring. This government service for combating money laundering and terrorist financing plans to set up a new analysis platform, according to reports on RBC. This platform will be used to track crypto-currency transactions. The mechanisms behind the platform will be based on artificial intelligence (AI).
In its report, the news service RBC refers to a notice on a letter to the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maxim Parshin. The letter states that Rosfinmonitoring plans to develop a system for the analysis of crypto-currency transactions using artificial intelligence (AI). The project, referred to in the document as "Transparent Blockchain", is to be included in the federal "Artificial Intelligence" project, according to the agency.
Anonymity "significantly reduced
This new system should be able to "partially reduce" the anonymity of transactions in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Omni (OMNI) as well as data protection-oriented crypto currencies such as Dash (DASH) and Monero (XMR). In its article, RBC refers to two sources in the crypto-scene that are not mentioned by name and that are already familiar with the "transparent block chain". According to Rosfinmonitoring, the users of the system could be authorities, the Bank of Russia and "other financial organisations". The project is described as unique for Russia. According to RBC, the authority justifies this novel development by the fact that "virtual assets, including various cryptocurrency systems, are used by criminals in a variety of illegal systems. These include drug trafficking, tax evasion, cybercrime, contract killings, selling information from closed databases, financing extremism."
According to RBC, the project has so far received only extra-budgetary funds, but these have not been sufficient for final implementation. According to preliminary data, the Russian "Transparent Blockchain" will need about 760 million roubles (equivalent to 10.3 million US dollars) from the federal budget from 2021 to 2023. Target customers of the new platform are primarily large financial institutions such as the Russian central bank. In the USA, Chainanalysis is a service provider that supplies the federal authorities with crypto-transaction data. However, this is not itself in government hands.
Recently, a decree of Russian President Putin had made people sit up and take notice. This expressly permitted the private ownership of Bitcoin & Co., but did not allow its acceptance as an official means of payment.
