Wells Fargo has decided to invest $5 million in a British crypto company founded in 2013, Elliptic, which deals with protecting companies from financial crimes related to the cryptocurrency world, by offering courses for managers of third-party companies.
Essentially, the company carries out blockchain analysis and calculates management risk, besides providing AML services to exchanges such as Binance, for example, but also to other types of companies such as Zilliqa and Circle. In addition, Elliptic also conducts investigations to solve cases related to the crypto world.
Some time ago, for instance, Elliptic was able to uncover a group of Hamas terrorists who were using cryptocurrencies for illegal purposes, after receiving about $4,000 in donations.
“If they see payments going between their customers and one of a long list of crypto entities, they can understand more about who that entity is and whether it’s something they should be concerned about,” Elliptic co-founder and CEO James Smith explained to CNBC.
The company had already received $23 million in a B Series investment last September from Wells Fargo, so today’s news is just an addendum to the previous investment made by the US multinational. Again according to CNBC, all these investments would in fact amount to over $40 million.
This investment probably testifies once again that the banks have understood that cryptocurrencies are here to stay and therefore it is better to relocate their business or at least adapt to this technological revolution.
“It’s no longer OK for a bank to stick their head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist. Crypto is here to stay and whether or not you want to participate in it, some of your customers will be”, continued Smith.
