Huobi Group recently announced the launch of Star Atlas–a tool that can be used to track and monitor on-chain cryptocurrency transactions for malicious activities.

Star Atlas is a new blockchain analytics tool capable of tracking and monitoring on-chain transactions in its networks. The aim is to reduce the number of fraudulent transactions that used to occur frequently in Huobi.

With the roll-out of the Star Atlas, Huobi can be better positioned to comply with the requirements of global financial regulators.

Hopefully, this will streamline the company’s efforts in complying with licensing, Know Your Client (KYC), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements wherever it operates.

Ciara Sun, VP of Global Business of Huobi group said:

“As one of the most active crypto exchanges on the market, we see it as our responsibility to take a leading role in preventing the minority of bad actors from ruining it for the vast majority that follows the rules.”

She added that while only a small portion of cryptocurrency transactions are illegal, they still deserve proper attention. According to her, regardless of size, it “is a stain in the entire industry.”

How does it work?

Star Atlas will provide another layer of transparency for its community–enabling better tracking for cryptocurrency transactions and quick identification of potential crimes like fraud, money laundering, and other illicit activities.

With Star Atlas’ real-time monitoring feature, transactions can be easily flagged if they seem suspicious or problematic.

Star Atlas monitors on-chain flow of assets, event correlation analysis, identity authentication, and malicious address labeling to identify whether an activity would need further inspection.

It also keeps a database of addresses that includes those that are already blacklisted. It can expand automatically to cover malicious accounts and those that can be linked to dark web transactions.

And when an account is flagged by the system for suspicious activity, it immediately imposes temporary withdrawal restrictions pending the submission of transaction verification documents.

According to Sun:

“Star Atlas is a tool we are very proud of as it encapsulates and maintains the most important core values at Huobi. We have robust security on our platforms, we put safety first for our users, and our platform always makes our best efforts to provide a safe, secure trading experience for our users.”

History of ‘bad actors’ in Huobi

Chainalysis recently published a 2020 Crypto Crime Report that revealed how vulnerable Huobi’s network is from “bad actors.”

About 24.7% of the US$2.8 billion [AU$4.4 billion] in Bitcoin (BTC) that was “moved from criminal entities to exchanges” were seen in Huobi. Binance witnessed 27.5% of the movement of illegally transacted BTCs, and all other exchanges comprised the remaining 47.8%.

Most of the bad actors in the Huobi network identified in the Chainalysis report are over-the-counter (OTC) brokers. They make up at most 70% of the biggest criminal groups that facilitate money laundering activities in various exchanges. Hence, the need for more stringent measures to make sure that the network is not vulnerable to criminal behavior.

Images courtesy of Дмитрий Шустов/Flickr, Markus Spiske/Pexels