Mastercard announced on Thursday the acquisition of CipherTrace, a crypto tracking firm for an undisclosed sum.

CipherTrace creates solutions to assist governments and businesses in tracking down illegal virtual currency transactions to make cryptocurrencies safe and trustworthy. Anti-money laundering, forensics, and blockchain threat intelligence solutions for digital currencies and analytics platform for the tracking and deanonymization of crypto transactions are some services CipherTrace offers.

“Digital assets have the potential to reimagine commerce, from everyday acts like paying and getting paid to transform economies, making them more inclusive and efficient,” said Ajay Bhalla, president of Mastercard's Cyber & Intelligence division. “With the rapid growth of the digital asset ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe. Our aim is to build upon the complementary capabilities of Mastercard and CipherTrace to do just this.”

Mastercard has been expanding its crypto involvement for quite some time. In July, Mastercard improved its company's card programme for digital assets trading sites and wallets. Mastercard also revealed its ambitions for cryptos, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and also started an initiative to support startups in the crypto space.

Dave Jevans, CEO, CipherTrace said in a statement: “We help companies – whether they are banks or cryptocurrency exchanges, government regulators or law enforcement to keep the crypto economy safe,”

He adds, “Our two companies share this vision to provide security and trust throughout the ecosystem. We are thrilled to join the Mastercard family to scale CipherTrace’s reach across the globe.”

The transaction is the latest example of how prominent corporations like Mastercard are becoming more interested in the virtual currency sector in order to provide "more transparency and support" for the booming digital asset ecosystem.

The acquisition is one of many investments made by the financial payments giant, which has also invested in companies such as Uphold, Bitpay, and Gemini.

Pavan A

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA