Elliptic Ltd. is a London-based

blockchain analysis Blockchain analysis is the process of inspecting, identifying, clustering, modeling and visually representing data on a cryptographic distributed-ledger known as a blockchain. The goal of blockchain analysis is to discover useful information about ...

provider founded in 2013.

Activities

The company's primary business is its blockchain analysis tool that provides

cryptocurrency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acce ...

s and

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

with

anti-money laundering software Anti-money laundering software (AML software) is software used in the finance and legal industries to help companies comply with the legal requirements for financial institutions and other regulated entities to prevent or report money laundering ...

. The company also runs a

forensics Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and crimina ...

software that law enforcement have used to track

bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

terrorist funding.

History

When launched in 2013, Elliptic was initially known for providing a cold storage vault service for storing

private keys to protect them from theft and hacks. Since then the company has been known for its anti-money-laundering analysis software. Software such as Elliptic's has been argued to increase institutionalisation of bitcoin. Elliptic's software has also been used to alert cryptocurrency firms when terrorists attempt to raise money via bitcoin. On November 4 2020, almost US$1 billion worth of

that likely originated from

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

was on the move, according to Elliptic. That month, 69,369 bitcoins were reportedly moved out of a wallet that may be associated with the Silk Road website.

References

{{Reflist British companies established in 2013