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Public agencies are under-equipped when it comes to cryptocurrency-related crime, according to a recent survey conducted by blockchain data analytics firm Chainalysis.
The platform researched how agencies considered how well they could keep up with crypto-related crime with the resourced they have. According to the survey results, 74% of respondents indicated that they felt their agencies were inadequately equipped to explore and investigate crime related to digital assets. Of this, many noted that additional training, resources, and tools would be helpful in their investigations.
Source: Chainalysis
As pointed out by Chainalysis, the regulation of cryptocurrency has been difficult to keep up with given how quickly the industry has grown:
“From regulators’ perspective, cryptocurrency has grown from a niche hobby to a trillion-dollar asset class in under a decade, bringing with it concerns over consumer protection, market manipulation, AML/CTF enforcement, and more.”
Surveying over 300 respondents, Chainalysis found that a vast majority of those in the agencies would prefer more resources relevant to the crypto-related investigations.
Looking at how employees within the public agencies view cryptocurrency, many of those polled perceive the market as overall positive with more agency staff members seeing genuine use-case in the industry than risk. When asked whether they think “cryptocurrency is mainly used by criminals and other malicious actors”, many of the respondents noted that they strongly or slightly disagree. On the other side, many respondents agreed that they “believe cryptocurrency will become widely adopted amongst the general population.”
As noted by Chainalysis, despite the fact that cryptocurrency is linked to criminal activity in what they investigate, respondents typically see the industry as overall positive:
“Respondents overwhelmingly said that cryptocurrency is relevant to their investigations and that their agencies should invest resources into cryptocurrency investigations. However, despite acknowledging cryptocurrency’s role in the criminal activity they investigate, respondents don’t take a negative view of cryptocurrency.”