Key Takeaways
- In line with blockchain analytics agency Elliptic, the cross-chain bridge RenBridge has been used to launder over $540 million over the previous two years.
- Elliptic’s vice chairman of coverage and regulatory affairs, David Carlisle, has mentioned he believes regulators will quickly begin cracking down on cross-chain bridges.
- The agency’s claims come two days after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Twister Money’s decentralized privateness protocol for allegedly facilitating cash laundering.
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Elliptic’s vice chairman of coverage and regulatory affairs, David Carlisle, has mentioned that he expects regulators to begin cracking down on cross-chain bridges within the subsequent six months to a 12 months.
RenBridge Reportedly Used to Launder Over $540M
Elliptic has claimed that criminals use RenBridge and different cross-chain bridges to launder cash and canopy their tracks on-chain.
In a Wednesday CNBC interview, Elliptic’s vice chairman of coverage and regulatory affairs, David Carlisle, mentioned that the cross-chain bridge RenBridge has been used to launder at the least $540 million in illicit crypto proceeds during the last two years, together with over $153 million that allegedly originated from ransomware funds.
Carlisle mentioned that he thinks regulators will start zeroing in on cross-chain bridges within the subsequent six to 12 months. “One main query is whether or not bridges will develop into topic to regulation since they act quite a bit like crypto exchanges, that are already regulated,” he mentioned.
Cross-chain bridges kind a core a part of the blockchain ecosystem. They’re used to maneuver belongings from one blockchain to a different via reliance on centralized custodians or decentralized autonomous protocols. RenBridge is a decentralized bridge created by Ren. It lets customers transfer many belongings throughout 9 supported networks and is without doubt one of the hottest protocols for “chain hopping”—shifting funds throughout a number of chains to obfuscate their supply—as a result of it doesn’t depend on a centralized entity that may censor or freeze transactions to custody funds.
Elliptic has claimed that RenBridge has been utilized by infamous cybercrime syndicates, together with the North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus Group and the suspected Russia-based cybercrime group behind the Conti ransomware. In line with the agency, the latter group allegedly has laundered greater than $53 million via RenBridge.
Elliptic’s claims come solely two days after the U.S. Treasury put the web site and sensible contracts of the decentralized Ethereum privateness protocol Twister Money on its financial sanctions listing, successfully banning all U.S. residents from interacting with the protocol. The transfer marked the primary time the Treasury has blacklisted a wise contract or a chunk of code representing a impartial technical instrument that can be utilized for each licit and illicit functions. Like Twister Money, RenBridge can also be primarily based on sensible contracts, that means the U.S. authorities may doubtlessly sanction it if it decides that it desires to make it more durable for the general public to entry it.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the creator of this text owned ETH and several other different cryptocurrencies.
