The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Inca Digital‘s government contracting division, Inca Digital Federal, a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract “to research advanced methods for analyzing activity related to financial applications of distributed ledgers in a project called: ‘Mapping the Impact of Digital Financial Assets’.”
The aim of the SBIR is “to understand and visualize how digital assets implicate national security.”
Adam Zarazinski, CEO of Inca Digital, said:
“Digital asset markets hold amazing promise, but also contend with money laundering, market manipulation, and state actors that may pose risks to U.S. national security. Given the increasing prevalence of digital assets, the Department of Defense and other federal agencies need to have better tools to understand how digital assets operate and how to leverage their jurisdictional authority over digital asset markets globally.”
As a result of this SBIR, Inca Digital Federal will “develop a first-of-its-kind cryptocurrency ecosystem mapping tool for analyzing cross-market crypto-financial data and risk.”
The data analytics from Inca Digital will allow both the United States government and commercial companies to:
- Perform cross-market, crypto-financial mapping and analysis
- Understand relationships between digital asset firms and non-digital asset entities
- Identify how cryptocurrency may affect traditional financial systems and vice-versa
- Provide insight into the use of blockchain-based technologies linked to money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasions across systems (e.g., fiat-to-exchange, exchange-to-blockchain, and cross-blockchain transactions)
- Better understand money flows in and out of blockchain systems
- Identify where recipients of cryptocurrency can exchange it for local fiat currency, or goods and services, globally
- Understand how cryptocurrencies are used in different U.S. government/Department of Defense areas of responsibility
This research is being “developed by funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).” The views, opinions and/or findings expressed “are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.”
As noted in the update, Inca Digital and its government contracting entity, Inca Digital Federal, analyze data “across crypto markets, blockchains, and news and social media to deliver comprehensive intelligence to the financial institutions, technology firms and government entities that are shaping the digital asset space.”
