With Big Data Comes the Need for Search Analytics 
The decentralized, prompt, vast and anonymous natures of cryptocurrencies have helped boost its popularity among users, but these characteristics have also drawn the attention of financial criminals.
Bloomberg reported that cryptocurrency cybercrime cost victims around $225 million over roughly the first half of 2017. Other recent headlines detail activity such as theft, money laundering and terrorist funding under the cover of the dark web using cryptocurrencies. Law enforcement is playing catch-up but find that to succeed, they need cutting-edge tools.
Enter BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. (CSE: BIGG, OTCQB: BBKCF, Forum). Headquartered in Vancouver, BIGG is developing technology that can trace, track, and monitor cryptocurrencies at a forensic level for law enforcement, regulators, retailers, and the financial industry to meet the growing demand for greater security and transaction transparency. The Company went as far as to trace funds from the biggest cryptocurrency hack in history, but more on that later.
With a background in datacentre deployment, Lance Morginn, Big Blockchain’s CEO has been in technology since 1994, along with his partner and his lead engineer, Shone and Marty Anstey. He met the cousins in 1999 when he co-founded a company trading on the CSE and they were search engine designers.
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Shone and Marty Anstey have coded at all the different levels that are within the blockchain space. They created their own cryptocurrency just for educational purposes in 2012, then a year later created their own mining pool software for a client and helped deploy a large-scale mine. In 2014, they realized that the Bitcoin environment, and cryptocurrencies in general, are big data issues. Bitcoin is growing every 10 minutes, and when you have big data, you have a requirement for search and analytics. In 2015, the BIGG team was formed and got to work. The team announced that it had a search engine that could look inside the Bitcoin ecosystem and that drew a lot of attention from law enforcement. This was where it focused its initial product, Qlue - Qualitative Law Enforcement Unified Edge.
“Follow the Money”
It’s not the cryptocurrencies that are vulnerable, but the third-party providers that are subject to tampering, hacking, phishing, or cryptojacking. The Company has a suite of tools that allow law enforcement the ability to trace, track and monitor cryptocurrencies at a forensic level. What that means is that it can see any address, almost in real-time, that is performing a transaction. BIGG can see the funds that are in that address or wallet, where those funds have been before, and can even trace a coin back to the very first day that it was minted.
Big Blockchain can also identify entities, such as exchanges, within the Bitcoin blockchain, showing where the addresses have converted to other cryptos or to fiat currency. It’s by those means that the Company helps give law enforcement the tools they need to be able to de-anonymize someone in a pseudo-anonymous space.
Through its Qlue (pronounced “clue”) platform, a user can quickly drill-down to the critical information they require, which is contained within any blockchain. BIGG’s application programming interface (API) will manage the big data burden across multiple sources, while you assess the risk and make an informed decision.
By using web crawlers and dark web crawlers, Big Blockchain collects addresses and the key words around them. Any addresses caught in an illicit space is flagged and it can start to build a case file before there might even be a case file. By using artificial intelligence, different addresses are combined when used by a single identity (such as an organization or exchange) and a clearer picture emerges of this global financial system, making it easier for investigators to follow the money trail. The next version of Qlue is expected to be released by April 2018.
Another major asset in BIGG’s arsenal is BitRank Verified, a proprietary wallet-scoring system that performs real-time risk assessment to determine the relative safety of a pending Bitcoin transaction.
Since everyone dealing in cryptocurrency acts as their own bank, BitRank Verified takes a complex problem and assigns an easy-to-understand risk-score to each of the 380 million addresses in the Bitcoin environment. When an address first comes online, it receives a neutral score. As it performs transactions, the score is adjusted based on its association with illicit activities, such as money laundering. If Big Blockchain’s algorithm has even found the wallet transacting over the dark web next to illicit activities, that will also impact its score. This tool looks to provide a level of trust for banks, exchanges, consumers, and developers looking to provide regulatory compliance.
BIGG’s other service Blockbits offers real-time search and data analytics for companies that need to quickly and securely verify critical business information. BIGG’s user-friendly visual API provides access to data that anyone can understand. Investors will want to stay tuned for more information on this platform.
The Company labels itself as “cryptocurrency agnostic”. CEO Morginn explains that as other cryptos gain momentum, they can be incorporated into BIGG’s tools. The Company is currently working on Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash, with Litecoin next on its radar. By that same token, Big Blockchain is also “blockchain agnostic”, with the ability to adapt its engine to other business sectors such as healthcare, insurance, or supply chain management, but for now, it will stay where the money is, cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s market cap is currently sitting at more than $191 billion, but Lance Morginn feels that investors should really be looking at the hardware infrastructure.
“There are about a million machines at minimum providing cryptography at a value of at least $1.5 billion. We would assume that you could almost double or triple those numbers in the amount of equipment that is providing the security for this infrastructure. We’re providing the ability to look into this new secured transaction protocol with our suite of tools. We are also the only ones who allow law enforcement to go on the attack, which is something that is unique to us.”
The Missing Piece
Cryptocurrency is still seen with a skeptical eye by many investors, either because of its lack of security or the volatility of its value, or both. In response, CEO Morginn points out that the biggest form of money laundering is still cash, because it is not traceable. However, in the digital realm, despite the anonymity behind it, cryptos are entirely trackable.
“This is really the ideal environment for the financial world to be participating in because it has a complete transparency that the traditional fiat world does not have.”
The Company is seeing trends of cryptocurrency crime increase, especially the dollar amount of money involved, but since so many people are getting in on the crypto-wave and abiding by the law, the overall percentage of transactions that are illicit are decreasing. There will always be illicit activity in this space and this serves as another benefit to BIGG’s operation is that it is not tied to the price of a cryptocurrency. If it has a form of value, its tools serve a purpose.
Lance Morginn adds that BIGG is bringing together several value-added re-sellers its products. Stockhouse readers may recall previous editorial on BIGG and it’s recently-announced partnership with Securrency, Inc. a know your client (KYC) provider to the information technology (IT) world for more than 50 countries. The Company has also partnered with smart contract platform Rootstock to leverage the Ethereum back-end but uses the Bitcoin blockchain infrastructure to provide extra security.
“One of the key messages that we hear when we’re out there, talking to different potential customers is that we’re the missing piece. That gives us further confidence that we’re on the right track.”
Robert Whitaker.
In addition to a number of customers, Big Blockchain also boasts several high-profile clients, such as the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. The head of Homeland Security’s Illicit Finance Division - Robert Whitaker - was so impressed with the Company he left his position with the cabinet department and joined BIG Blockchain as Director of Forensics and Investigations. This hire gave the Company further validity as they made headlines with their most successful investigation yet ….
Solving theXEM Hack
It is the biggest crypto heist to-date. On January 26th, 2018 hackers stole more than $530 million (USD) from one of Japan’s largest exchanges, the altcoin XEM, which impacted 260,000 users.
Robert Whitaker led the team that traced the proceeds of the stolen money to a Vancouver-based exchange where the money was being laundered out. The investigation is ongoing, so further details will remain slim, but CEO Morginn noted that Big Blockchain has more than a few cases that it has been asked to work on and he expects to see more authorities ask for help in significant numbers.
Image of XEM news conference via Bloomberg reporter Yuji Nakamura.
The Beginning of the Tidal Wave
Perceptive investors are probably starting to see similarities to where blockchain is at right now to the earlier days of the internet around 1998. For Big Blockchain Intelligence Group, that blue-sky lies in the potential for its software to expand to other sectors, like healthcare or retail. As more outlets accept cryptocurrency payments, regulation becomes that much more necessary and BIGG will be that much busier.
Lance Morginn is looking to the future with a lot of positivity.
“People ask me what helps me get out of bed in the morning and besides being a part of helping further bring a global currency mainstream, is that it’s through tools like ours that we will be able to state that we’ve saved a life, or lives, or hundreds of lives, and I don’t know too many companies that you can be a part of where you can get away with knowing that that is inevitable.”
www.blockchaingroup.io
FULL DISCLOSURE: Big Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. is a paid client of Stockhouse Publishing.