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- 1 Nearly $4 Billion worth of crypto assets were stolen last year according to Chainalysis.
- 2 In 2021, KPMG’s Canada office purchased BTC and Ethereum for their corporate treasury.
Blockchain intelligence company Chainalysis and the Canada arm of one of the Big Four accounting organizations have entered a partnership to fight crypto crime. As a part of this collaboration, KPMG professionals will be granted Chainalysis Certified investigators titles to provide assistance to public and private sector entities, preventing illicit acts in the sector.
Criminal Activities Have Been Rising in The Sector
According to National Forensic Leader in KPMG Canada, Enzo Carlucci, “Cryptoasset exchanges, crypto-native companies, financial institutions, government, and law enforcement agencies are increasingly looking for innovative ways to help them “follow the crypto” to investigate criminal activity.”
He added, “By teaming up with Chainalysis, KPMG clients can benefit from Chainalysis’ proprietary blockchain data monitoring technology, resulting in improved identification of potentially criminal activities and faster response times. Addressing and reporting criminal activities quickly can be challenging for organizations, but this collaboration helps address that.”
The official announcement sheds light on some statistics associated with illicit activities in the crypto sector. Illegal crypto transactions reached $20.6 Billion in 2022. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Center registered 92,078 complaints during the year.
Crypto is an extremely volatile market with no official backing from the government. This makes it a highly insecure financial horizon for users. Malicious actors are known to breach some of the biggest ecosystems to steal user funds. The Poly Network hack of 2021 and the attack on Ronin Bridge in the following year remain two of the biggest breaches to this date. However, the former act was executed to reveal the network’s vulnerabilities and all the funds were returned to the company.
Chainalysis noted in one of their reports that nearly $4 Billion worth of crypto assets were stolen last year. Moreover, American news outlet CNBC reported that Bitcoin (BTC), a cryptocurrency, lost 60 percent of its value during the year. The same percentage of Americans deemed digital assets as risky in a survey.
In 2021, KPMG’s Canada office purchased BTC and Ethereum for their corporate treasury. The company has been venturing into new technologies and finance practices in recent years. Additionally, it has a division solely dedicated to blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency services.
The division’s co-leader, Kareem Sadek, said, “We’ve invested in a strong cryptoassets practice, and we will continue to enhance and build on our capabilities across decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse, to name a few.”
Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Canada, however, the Canada Revenue Agency considers them a commodity. Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act (PCA) covers everyone in the nation dealing with digital assets. Only coins minted and notes issued by their central bank are deemed as legal tender.
The country has, however, accepted cryptocurrencies to some extent. Nation’s first blockchain ETF was approved by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange today.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
