Huobi launches a new tool for monitoring illegal activities

The Huobi Global (HT) group has launched an intelligence tool for internal transactions that promptly detects illegal activities acted through its cryptocurrency exchanges.

The new "Star Atlas" program

According to a press release dated April 13, the new program, called the "Star Atlas", will automatically block accounts deemed to be engaged in "suspicious" transactions until a compliance officer intervenes directly in the case. Star Atlas will assist Huobi exchanges to detect "anomalous behavior" and "problematic transactions" in real time.

The company has not yet clarified which are the patterns of behavior deemed illegal. However, the press release states that Star Altas will refer to a multitude of previously blacklisted addresses obtained from tracking user transactions.

Global Business vice president Ciara Sun said in the press release that the Star Atlas project will help the group's exchanges to crack down on the bad guys whose shady dealings endanger the cryptocurrencies of most users who follow the rules.

"Star Atlas is an on-chain monitoring tool to monitor cryptocurrency transactions and identify crimes such as fraud, money laundering and other problematic activities."

Criticality of the past

A number of criminals from the crypto world have shown an apparent appetite for Huobi, according to Chainalysis' 2019 report on encrypted money laundering, which develops corporate intelligence software very similar to Star Atlas.

Chainalysis said that Huobi was the exit ramp for nearly 25% of Chainalysis's illicit $ 2.8 billion in bitcoin (BTC) transactions tracked in 2019. Only Binance had a higher quote.

Improve the ecosystem thanks to external collaborations

Although Star Atlas is similar to the tools developed by Chainalysis, Elliptic and Ciphertrace, Sun believes that Huobi has an advantage that he is willing to collaborate with other companies in the sector: "It is similar, but it is different because Huobi operates as an exchange from almost seven years and we've combined tons of security research.

We have never encountered a serious security breach. Our team has a very deep expertise with a proven track record and over the past seven years we have developed all this data. Thanks to this, Star Altas maintains a large database of addresses ”.

Huobi is considering collaborating with other characters in the crypto space such as Chainalysis and CryptoCompare. According to Sun, there are synergies between Huobi and other companies in the sector. Huobi has accumulated a lot of data in Asia, while other companies may have more data in the West.

The launch of Star Atlas comes as Huobi prepares to return to the US market with a currently anonymous regulated partner. Sun previously stated that he hopes to comply with local regulations more easily thanks to this partnership than his previous US affiliate for Huobi.