As part of its commitment to curb perpetual crypto fraud, the American financial service provider, Mastercard, has officially announced launching a new crypto fraud protection tool. According to the financial service, the new tool will help banks find and prevent fraud on crypto merchant platforms within their network.
Mastercard’s Crypto Fraud Protection Tool
The tool, known as Crypto Secure, assesses the risk of criminal activity related to cryptocurrency exchanges on the Mastercard payment network using “advanced” artificial intelligence algorithms. The system makes use of information from multiple sources, including the blockchain, a public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions.
CipherTrace, a blockchain security startup that Mastercard purchased last year, powers the service. CipherTrace, a Menlo Park, California-based company, assists organizations and authorities in investigating unauthorized cryptocurrency transactions. Its primary competitors are the New York-based Chainalysis and the London-based Elliptic.
Mastercard is introducing the solution against the backdrop of an increase in criminality in the emerging digital asset market. According to statistics from blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, the amount of cryptocurrency entering wallets with known criminal connections increased to a record $14 billion last year. 2022 has also seen a wave of high-profile cyber attacks and con games targeting cryptocurrency investors.
Fighting Fraud in the Crypto Space: MasterCard
Speaking on the new protection tool, Ajay Bhalla, the president of the cyber and intelligence business for Mastercard, said the tool is developed to fight fraud in the crypto space.
In her words: “The idea is that the kind of trust we provide for digital commerce transactions, we want to be able to provide the same kind of trust to digital asset transactions for consumers, banks and merchants.”
Meanwhile, it should be noted that the financial service provider is already using a similar technology to prevent fraud in fiat currency transactions. However, with the new Crypto Secure, it shows that it is expanding such functionality to bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Follow TechGenyz for more updates.
