SBIR Phase I: Comprehensive Blockchain Transaction Monitoring for Illicit Funds and Actors

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于，它将产生强大的技术，用于近乎实时地检测非法加密货币账户和资金。这项技术的商业和市场影响将是巨大的，因为它能够以前所未有的深度和广度追踪非法账户和资金，并在几秒钟到几分钟内完成，而传统的网络追踪技术需要很长时间甚至无限期的时间。对于整个社会来说，发现最复杂的洗钱和欺诈计划的能力将有助于减少资金流向使用加密货币的最恶劣行为者：有组织犯罪、毒品贩子、儿童色情制品商、人口贩运者、恐怖分子和流氓国家。有了这个项目创建的平台，政府和私营部门将拥有有效应对复杂犯罪计划的工具。这反过来将导致基于加密货币的经济的更大增长，因为企业和个人对他们正在与不寻求欺诈的合法实体打交道有了更大的信心。这个SBIR第一阶段的项目将揭露涉及加密货币的最复杂的非法计划。在这样做的过程中，它将保护加密货币系统，并推进网络分析和可视化领域，这将是理解这些方案所需要的。在第一期项目中有三个主要的技术障碍。首先，网络跟踪算法的拟议实施和基础设施需要扩大规模，以实时跟踪整个比特币和以太坊区块链。其次，为了能够追踪已知非法账户的地址，需要识别足够数量的此类账户。拟议的项目将开发软件，用于交叉引用链上账户地址以及透明和暗网活动，以建立已知不良行为者地址列表。第三，为了让客户相信分析结果，必须创建一个网络可视化工具，显示连接可疑账户和已知非法账户的监管链。由于算法可以检测到涉及帐户之间数千笔资金转移的方案，因此以清晰的方式可视化这些链接提出了独特的挑战。因此，该项目也将为其第一阶段的新型可视化工具奠定基础。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is that it will result in powerful technology for detecting illicit cryptocurrency accounts and funds in close to real time. The commercial and market impact of the technology will be substantial with its ability to trace illicit accounts and funds to a depth and breadth never before possible and to accomplish this in seconds to minutes, as compared to the long to indefinite time it would take conventional network tracing technology. For society at large, the ability to uncover the most complex money laundering and fraud schemes will help cut the flow of funds to the worst actors using cryptocurrency: organized crime, narcotics dealers, child pornographers, human traffickers, terrorists, and rogue nations. With the platform created in this project, governments in conjunction with the private sector will have tools that can effectively address the sophistication of the criminal schemes. This will in turn result in greater growth of the cryptocurrency-based economy as businesses and individuals gain greater confidence that they are dealing with legitimate entities that are not seeking to defraud them.This SBIR Phase I project will bring to light the most sophisticated illicit schemes involving cryptocurrencies. In doing so, it will secure cryptocurrency systems and advance the fields of network analysis and visualization, which will be needed to understand the schemes. There are three major technical hurdles in the Phase I project. First, the proposed implementation and infrastructure for the network tracing algorithms need to be scaled up to trace the entire Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains in real-time. Second, to be able to trace addresses to known illicit accounts, a sufficient number of these accounts need to be identified. The proposed project will develop software for cross referencing account addresses with both on-chain and clear and dark web activity to build the lists of known bad actor addresses. Third, for customers to believe the results of the analysis, a network visualization tool to show the chains of custody linking a suspect account to a known illicit account must be created. Because the algorithms can detect the schemes involving thousands of fund transfers between accounts, visualizing the links in a clear manner presents unique challenges. The project will therefore also build the foundation for its novel visualization tool in Phase I.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.