According to the research conducted by Wall Street Journal, almost USD88.6m illegal funds have been directed through forty-six digital currency exchanges. Wall Street Journal also added that USD9 million of the alleged finances purportedly went through ShapeShift, one of the most significant digital currencies today.
ShapeShift was established by Erik Voorhees in the year 2014 and has an office in Switzerland. Not like other trading avenues available. This digital cryptocurrency enables consumers to trade bitcoin in secret or anonymously, which law can monitor, but sad to say is not able to recognize the identity of the person behind the said operation.
To carry out its examination of money laundering related to digital currency, Wall Street Journal created computer software that monitored finances from more than 2,500 alleged investment scams, blackmail schemes as well as other suspected crimes which utilized Ethereum and Bitcoin. To investigate the transactions of this Switzerland based digital currency, the Wall Street Journal downloaded and stored a record of the fifty newest deals every fifteen seconds, at the website of the said digital currency exchange.
According to the Wall Street Journal, bad performers and players took benefit of the services of the digital currency to convert Bitcoin into an undetectable digital currency Monero. Shapeshift further kept on to process these ill-gotten funds, on the other didn’t modify its ruling regarding the anonymity of the users. During an interview with Wall Street Journal, developer of ShapeShift stated that he doesn’t believe that users should have their individuality listed to seize occasional scandalous people.
Afterward, Wall Street Journal handed ShapeShift with a file of doubtful addresses that were purportedly utilizing the digital currency exchange. ShapeShift chief legal officer Veronica McGregor spoke to Wall Street Journal saying that the exchange assessed and barred those addresses. AT this point, the exchange has a plan of asking identification information to users starting October 1st.
Replying on the views of the founder of ShapeShift concerning the anonymity regulation of the company, Veronica commented that, “only because it is the personal viewpoint of the Chief Executive Office does not signify that is how business is going to be operated. He is not against money laundering.
While users haven’t been obliged in the past to register or sign in on this exchange to do trades, ShapeShift will little by little introduce identification requirements for investors and traders. Few week days ago, the company presented a new reward plan that will become an obligatory membership model for the user of the said exchange and need the condition of necessary personal detail.
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