What awaits Chainalysis and the crypto economy?
“Data availability in the crypto economy can be a double-edged sword,” says Grauer.
By this he means that the transparency of public blockchains creates accountability, but it also means that The world tends to hear a lot about cryptocurrency crashes, hacks and scams, illicit activities and technical glitches.
Chainalysis' bread and butter is data analysis enabling for regulatory compliance, criminal investigations, and business intelligence use cases.
So, in the past, Chainalysis' educational efforts have tried to counter the misconception that cryptocurrencies are the Wild West. He continues to regularly share data on the small proportion of cryptocurrency volume associated with illicit activity and continues to publish research, such as an April blog post explaining that cryptocurrency markets are not deep enough to serve as an effective conduit for Russian money trying to circumvent sanctions.
But, as his customers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of their knowledge from web3, Chainalysis is already trying to anticipate future questions. If the crypto economy remains fundamentally healthy, as Chainalysis believes, then adoption by businesses and financial services will continue to advance (although perhaps at a slower pace than in the boom years).
What will Chainalysis's clients - financial institutions, web3 companies, governments- within a year, or within three?
One potential area of research is the impact of rapidly changing regulations, which vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and whether it has any effect on business adoption.
Much of Grauer's role is to find the right questions to ask the data, the ones that will open up more pathways to a better and shared understanding of cryptocurrency.
"In my work, I try to ask those questions, the ones that reveal new ways of using data," says Grauer.
