A report from local news channel RBC confirmed on Tuesday Russian intelligence unit, Rosfinmonitoring, (Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service), has proposed a cryptocurrency monitoring tool similar to U.S.’s Chainalysis. The agency, in charge of reducing cases of money laundering and terrorist financing in the country, will start tracking Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies including privacy enhanced tokens such as DASH and XMR.
“The Transparent Blockchain”, is a new prototype built in partnership with the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences that will use artificial intelligence to track blockchain activity and cryptocurrency transactions. According to the report, a letter to the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, Maxim Parshin, has been approved by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communication.
So far, the Rosfinmonitoring has started preparations for widespread production of the software with the Bank of Russia and financial institutions within the country set to test it in the “near future.”
A $10 million request
The prototype is ready and tested on drug controls, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service confirmed. However, till now development of the blockchain analysis service has been constricted to extrabudgetary funds. To continue the build, the Rosfinmonitoring requested the federal government to increase their funding for the project by 760 million rubles (~$10.42 million) in the next three years.
Russia has been on the forefront in preventing money laundering and terrorist financing using cryptocurrencies. In July, President Vladimir Putin signed two digital asset bills into law – first, authorizing that crypto is property and second, digital assets cannot be used as a form of payment within the country. Earlier this month, the Russian government outlawed sending cryptocurrencies to any anonymous wallets forcing users to be fully KYC compliant.