Bittrex employing KYT software to flag high-risk transactions

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Concerns about fraud and scams related to cryptocurrencies have become a major concern for the industry. To help fight this, Bittrex has partnered with Chainalysis to employ their blockchain solution that will analyze all transactions, flagging those that are potentially fraudulent or appear to be high risk. This, according to a press release issued by Chainalysis on Thursday.

Chainalysis provides a real-time monitoring software platform where transactions that are deemed as suspicious are immediately flagged. Currently, Bittrex allows for the trading of several different digital currencies on their platform, including BTC, ETH, BCH, Litecoin, Dai, and Gemini.

With governmental agencies across the globe implementing new regulations to protect against money laundering and fraud, exchanges have been looking for ways to protect their exchanges from these illegal activities. This partnership should help Bittrex to get a step ahead of their competition, as they look to meet U.S. regulations.

“Having real-time information coming in from which we can make risk decisions is really an amazing step forward, and frankly one that’s not available to traditional financial institutions,” explained John Roth, chief compliance and ethics officer at Bittrex.

Chainalysis had already been monitoring 25 major cryptocurrencies and is looking to add additional digital currencies in the near future. This made their safeguards the perfect solution at Bittrex.

“As our business continues to grow, having a thorough and reliable transaction monitoring system in place is crucial in demonstrating our commitment to compliance. Chainalysis KYT is an important tool in having an effective anti-money laundering program by helping us prevent, detect, and address unlawful behavior,” CEO Bill Shihara said.

Because of its automated system and its ability to flag these transactions immediately, Jonathan Levin, the chief security officer at Chainalysis, explained that this system should easily accommodate the demands Bittrex presents.

“The key to supporting a large exchange like Bittrex is building features that enable them to automate their compliance process, prioritize their workflow, and customize their alerts to speed up how fast they can do due diligence,” Levin added.

The key to the system as automation. Because of the millions of transactions that are processed through the exchange monthly, it would be impossible for employees to ensure that the company was in compliance. Now they will receive that kind of assurance that any suspicious activity will be flagged immediately, allowing them to report them to regulators.