Coinbase Acquires Italian Blockchain Analytics Surveillance Company Neutrino

coinbaseSan Franciso based crypto exchange, Coinbase has stroked another major acquisition. And this time it has made a very different acquisition by acquiring Neutrino, an Italian blockchain surveillance company for an undisclosed sum.

This acquisition comes soon after it had acquired US exchange Blockspring, made major improvements to its overall client offerings and added first stablecoin to its portfolio. 

The latest acquisition of Neutrino has eyebrows of several industry participants, as the company has links to some suspicious roots in its development. The COO of Neutrino, Giancarlo Russo is a former COO of HackingTeam, and that company was in the business of selling offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies, and corporations.

As per the release from Coinbase, this acquisition is a strategic one and will help the exchange in pushing a broader class of digital currencies internationally. As a part of the deal, Neutrino will operate as a standalone business with all of its eight employees moving to London. From there it will serve external clients and expand its businesses. As per the blog post by Coinbase, it said:

“By analyzing data on public blockchains, Neutrino will help us prevent theft of funds from peoples’ accounts, investigate ransomware attacks, and identify bad actors. It will also help us bring more cryptocurrencies and features to more people while helping ensure compliance with local laws and regulations.”

“Neutrino’s technology is the best we’ve encountered in this space, and it will play an important role in legitimizing crypto, making it safer and more accessible for people all over the world.”

In another blog post yesterday, the exchange has also enabled its wallet service for Bitcoin Cash. The new wallet update will roll out to all users and will be available to all iOS and Android users over the next couple of weeks.

Coinbase wallet app now supports Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and over 100,000 different tokens built on ERC20 and ERC71 collectibles.