Huobi wants to create a safe trading environment and comply with regulations.

The Huobi Group’s Star Atlas is a proprietary on-chain analytics tool to monitor on-chain cryptocurrency transactions for illicit activities. One of its main purposes is to detect and deter illicit activities and criminals. Huobi also wants to address regulators’ worries that cryptocurrencies are a hotbed of criminal activity. (Yahoo Finance)

Star Atlas: Countering bad actors on Huobi Exchange

“It’s estimated that only a small percentage of cryptocurrency transactions are illicit, but any incident—regardless of size—is a stain on the entire industry,” said Ciara Sun, VP of Global Business of Huobi Group. “As one of the most active crypto exchanges on the market, we see it as our responsibility to take a leading role in preventing the minority of bad actors from ruining it for the vast majority that follows the rules.”

The Huobi Group’s concern is legitimate.

According to CoinDesk, which quoted a report by Chainalysis, “Huobi was the ‘off-ramp’ for nearly 25 percent of the $2.8 billion in illicit bitcoin (BTC) transactions Chainalysis traced in 2019.”

How Star Atlas works

Star Atlas utilizes various on-chain monitoring techniques, such as monitoring on-chain flow of assets, event correlation analysis, identity authentication, and malicious address labeling, to single out and track illicit activities.

Another powerful advantage of Star Atlas is its library of millions of tags and thousands of blacklisted addresses. This resource helps Star detect malicious accounts and even dark web transactions.

Huobi will temporarily freeze any account flagged by Star Atlas pending further verification. These accounts will be suspended for withdrawals.

Star Atlas may also find application outside of Huobi’s in-house surveillance, especially for governments, law enforcement and financial analysts. These customers need such tools to monitor cryptocurrencies and their use by nefarious actors for shady objectives.

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