A new “lightsaber” to fight cybercrime has been unveiled recently at the 500 Startups’ demo day. Among the 42 companies that graduated from the acceleration program is Sabr.io, a blockchain based startup. The startup offers blockchain reconnaissance solutions that will help identify and locate any criminal activity on the blockchain.
The Sabr.io platform combines the blockchain data obtained from various different sources which includes public and proprietary sources to gather information on bitcoin and other digital currencies which will come in handy during investigations. The data collected by Sabr.io platform will be a valuable source of intel which can potentially speed up the investigation process by many times.
The functioning of Sabr.io is not known as the company has refused to disclose the underlying technology by stating the sensitive nature of the work it does for the law enforcement agencies. The company however insists that no matter how complicated the process of data collection and interpretation is, the reporting will be as simple as possible. Easy human readable reports makes it easier to take quick decisions based on the intel made available by Sabr.io.
The services offered by Sabr.io will be welcomed by most of the law enforcement agencies across the world. Bitcoin is still considered as the most preferred currency among criminals due to the pseudonymity associated with it. The pseudonymous nature of bitcoin combined with the anonymity of certain wallets makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to track and identity the transactions and the parties involved in case of a crime. Sabr.io can change all of that.
Sabr.io will join the likes of other blockchain companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic. However, Sabr.io’s services are not so well received by everyone in the industry. There is a divided opinion about such services, some argue about its implications on privacy while others contend that minimizing digital currency related cybercrimes will increase the credibility of bitcoin and blockchain technology.