According to CryptoPotato, a new pilot program called Project Atlas has been launched by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Eurosystem, De Nederlandsche Bank, and the Deutsche Bundesbank. The program aims to provide surveillance over international flows of crypto assets by combining data from crypto exchanges with on-chain data on a single analytics platform for regulators and central banks to use. The project's infrastructure will collect granular and aggregate data relevant to central banks' mandates from public and proprietary sources.
The first proof-of-concept for Project Atlas focuses on modeling cross-border Bitcoin flows between exchanges based on their locations. The data gathering process involves grouping addresses controlled by the same actor, representing the flows between actors controlling multiple addresses in a network, and linking the addresses to the entities they belong to. This system can use on-chain data to surveil individuals by combining it with exchange data. However, the BIS acknowledged that mixing services such as CoinJoin infringe on its surveillance capabilities.
In summary, Project Atlas would provide central banks and regulators with a global overview of Bitcoin and crypto flows, including data on the entities involved, their transactions, and their magnitude and concentration. Combining this with a central bank-controlled CBDC would give governments ultimate control over financial flows. Market Analyst Sam Callahan emphasized the importance of considering the privacy of personal crypto holdings and the need for the industry to continue innovating and building privacy-enhancing tools to combat the growing surveillance state.
