Mastercard Acquires CipherTrace

[LeGaulois]

Have you heard the news about Ciphertrace being acquired by Mastercard? If not then here is the announcement from their website https://ciphertrace.com/mastercard-acquires-ciphertrace-to-enhance-crypto-capabilities/?hss_channel=tw-3972254294&utm_content=179283528

Not a good thing if you ask me. If we start to see such firms as Mastercard buying companies operating in the crypto sphere. Over time they will inject their ethics into it. (Which I personally do not need) And I can smell how it will end.

CipherTrace already works for some big banks and financial institutions, but being owned by them is something else.
In the name of security, you will be tracked. In the name of transparency and a safe environment... Who defines what's a safe environment? They aren't able to do it with fiat currencies, so will it be better with cryptocurrencies?
Aren't we supposed to progress without such entities? Why should we welcome them after all that they did and still do to us?

In my country, we could say it's like letting the wolf entering into the henhouse

[1715022776]

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[1715022776]

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[HeRetiK]

Not a fan, but it seems rather inevitable unfortunately. Banks have been put under a lot of regulatory pressure over the last few years so the market for blockchain analysis (assuming that's what they do, the information they provide in the link you posted is rather vague) does exist and will likely grow larger as more crypto-enthusiasts show up on their respective banks' radars. Currently banks tend to just kick people off since they don't want to bother with the regulatory overhead, however widely available blockchain analysis services may help with that. For better or worse.


Another thing caught my eye though:

2012
CipherTrace CTO Shannon Holland builds his first liquid cooled Bitcoin mining rigs with custom ASICs and firmware.

Is that even possible? I just checked with the Avalon website, but even their first batches, which were already pretty much impossible to come by, weren't released until early 2013:
https://canaan.io/about

It smells rather bullshitty, but it also doesn't really make sense to blatantly lie about something that's so easily debunked, so maybe I'm missing a bit of early mining history? I'm genuinely curious.

[dansus021]

i do aggree with you

maybe the simple version will be all cipherTrace data will know by MasterCard and after that maybe becoming less transparancy

but the good things is MasterCard deepdive to crypto network is also a GoodSign right?

[o_e_l_e_o]

(assuming that's what they do, the information they provide in the link you posted is rather vague)

Yeah, that's exactly what they do. CipherTrace have also been working with various branches of the US government for years. You can take a look at all their taxpayer funded contracts here - https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=VENDOR_FULL_NAME%3A%22CIPHERTRACE%2C+INC.%22. You'll see contracts from the FBI, IRS, SEC, CFTC, and others.

The acquisition is another sign that legacy financial institutions are realizing that bitcoin is here to stay and they need to get involved, which is arguably a good thing in terms of adoption, but in terms of privacy this is another disappointing development, although not really surprising at all. Centralized exchanges have been either employing such companies, buying them out altogether, or even setting up their own (e.g. Coinbase and Coinbase Analytics) for many years now. It was to be expected that any fiat banks or payment providers who wanted to get some skin in the crypto game would also start doing the same thing in the name of "protecting their customers" or some other such nonsense. And, as usual, since the vast majority of bitcoin users only care about profits, they'll roll over and accept any and all invasion in to their privacy if it means they can earn 1% cashback on their centralized, fully KYCed, 100% monitored, reported to your government, able to be frozen at any time, Mastercard Crypto Card.