Financial compliance authority Juan Llanos is joining blockchain analytics firm Coinalytics as the executive vice president of business development.

There, Llanos will be charged with establishing partnerships for the blockchain intelligence startup and working with customers at all stages, from initial engagement to onboarding to developing new solutions on top of the platform.

The role “is a convergence of my passion with an opportunity,” Llanos said, noting he has been studying data mining and machine learning for transaction monitoring, even helping to build some of these monitoring programs.

The hiring comes at a time when blockchain analytics platforms are gaining momentum, with Barclays partnering with Chainalysis in October and Coinalytics raising a $1.1m seed round in September. In August, Elliptic won “Security Project of the Year” after launching a blockchain visualization tool for the bitcoin blockchain.

Currently, Coinalytics is allowing several companies to use and test its API, which parses the bitcoin blockchain for easy querying.

But Llanos said the company is developing machine learning systems to analyze any blockchain as the industry expands to include public, permissioned and private ledgers.

While Coinalytics is focusing on its AML compliance product targeted at any companies processing bitcoin transactions today, it sees its analytics platform used in many verticals, including capital markets, the Internet of Things and law enforcement.

Tested hire

As a former co-founder and compliance officer at remittance provider Unidos Financial Services, Llanos brings significant experience to the role. While Unidos worked only in traditional remittances, Llanos continued to write about bitcoin, emerging as a certified anti-money laundering expert on the subject during his tenure.

As the bitcoin industry started to gain more attention from regulatory agencies, alongside its increased consumer adoption and investor interest, Llanos was pulled to work for the industry.

For a little more than a year and a half, he was the executive vice president of strategic partnerships and chief transparency officer at BitReserve (today, Uphold). He has also advised a number of bitcoin companies, including BitPagos, BitWage and Mexican bitcoin exchange startup, meXBT.

Llanos’ most high-profile role, however, was as a risk and compliance expert on the Bitcoin Foundation’s regulatory affairs committee, where he was often its spokesperson on the subject.

Fabio Federici, Coinalytics co-founder and CEO, was also keen to stress how Llanos will move the company forward, however, adding:

“Compliance and risk management will play a major role in fostering the adoption of blockchain technology across a variety of industries.”

Hiring visualization via Shutterstock