Rosfinmonitoring proposed to create a system for analyzing cryptocurrency transactions using artificial intelligence. To create this system, the watchdog needs 760 million rubles.

Rosfinmonitoring addressed the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maxim Parshin with a letter in which the watchdog proposed to create a system for analyzing cryptocurrency transactions. The project will allow to partially remove anonymity from participants in cryptocurrency transactions.

To create such a system, Rosfinmonitoring needs 760 million rubles from the federal budget (440 million rubles in 2021, 230 million rubles in 2022 and 90 million rubles in 2023), RBC reports.

The financial watchdog proposes to include the system in the Transparent Blockchain project as part of the federal Artificial Intelligence program.

According to the letter, a prototype of a system based on data from the bitcoin network has already been developed by Rosfinmonitoring together with the Lebedev Physics Institute and tested in the field of countering drug trafficking. The document also states that the Ministry of Internal Affairs got acquainted with the prototype, and financial organizations and intelligence agencies of other countries showed interest in the system.

The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications confirmed it had received such a letter, but did not comment on the content of the document.

As RBC explains, the project is unique for Russia, but there are already analogues on the world market, the most famous of which was created by the US-based company Chainalysis.

The first law on digital financial assets and digital currencies will enter into force in Russia in January 2021. It prohibits payments for goods and services using cryptocurrencies.