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This year we celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Elliptic. When the company was founded, the words “Bitcoin” and “crypto” were just beginning to be spoken among financial institutions and regulators.
Fast forward a decade and the crypto industry is now worth several trillion dollars. Not only that, it has also launched a number of technological developments – from decentralized finance (DeFi) to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and stablecoins.
The crypto space continues to create disruptive technologies, many of which will have an impact on our lives for years to come.
Elliptic has been at the forefront of meeting the challenges these developments bring, fine-tuning its suite of products to ensure compliance officers and financial institutions can stay secure in the ever-changing crypto landscape.
But how did we get here? And why is Elliptic best positioned to bring security to the crypto asset space? We sat down with Elliptic co-founder Adam Joyce to find out.
How did you first get involved in cryptocurrencies?
[Fellow Elliptic Co-founder] James Smith came to work in the same trading firm I was in. After a while, he started mentioning Bitcoin to me and as a result I read about it. Not long after that we started the company. So I really got involved by just jumping in the deep end without even testing the water!
This year we celebrate 10 years of Elliptic. How does it feel?
I’m not one to think much about my past achievements – or the future! – and usually just focus on the now and what task to do next. But I’m proud to think that we’ve come this far and that so many great people have worked with us along the way.
Tell us how Elliptic first got started. What is your favorite memory from that time?
James and [fellow Elliptic Co-founder] Tom Robinson was brainstorming ideas and thinking about doing something in crypto. They asked me if I wanted to join; try a start-up. So we all agreed to quit our jobs, sit in a room together and see what we could come up with.
I knew James quite well through working together for many months, but I only really met Tom a few times (to check if we liked each other!) before we started working together.
We were relatively naive about what we were undertaking, but we had enough faith to figure things out along the way. I think that supporting myself, believing that we can work things out as and when, and having enough confidence to persevere has helped a lot to make it this far.
How much and in what way has the cryptoasset space changed since you founded Elliptic 10 years ago?
I think that like any new idea or invention, the earliest adopters and early participants were very enthusiastic, optimistic and passionate. And that was even more true of Bitcoin, which was an innovation at the intersection of finance, technology, privacy, self-sovereignty, and censorship—helping to attract all kinds of interesting people into the space.
At the time I got involved, former financial services professionals and VCs were also being hired. However, it was still pretty much in its infancy, even in 2013 – four years after launch. At the time, we felt we could bring some ideas from traditional finance to mitigate risks that we could see causing problems.
I remember that banks would never publicly use the word Bitcoin in 2013, and when some did start publicly revealing an interest in the space, it would always be in terms of “blockchain technology”. But now, major investment banks have crypto trading desks, managing their compliance needs and fraud risks using blockchain analytics provided by firms like us, and some of those banks are now proud investors in Elliptic.
Why are Elliptic tools best equipped to fight financial crime in the crypto asset space?
We have a great combination of products, technology, data and ideas.
A diverse product suite enables different types of usage (high volume, API integrations, customer-centric insights, deep research).
The technology is reliable, robust, efficient and scalable. We rarely have interruptions or degradation of services. We support many, many blocks and can add new ones quickly. Response times are good, even with millions of requests per day. We can search wide and deep (no three jumps and stop here!).
We have a wealth of claims – real-world usage data – to help identify illegal activity, painstakingly collected with evidence over many years. This is combined with the insights of our analysts and data scientists.
We continue to lead the way in terms of innovation in our field. We were the first to introduce risk scoring. We were the first to make risk scoring configurable and personalized. We were the first to introduce holistic capabilities – cross-chain search.
What is the thing in the crypto space that surprises you the most?
An endless supply of new blockchains!
What is your favorite thing about the work culture at Elliptic?
I think someone once said that he felt able to devote himself wholeheartedly to working at Elliptic (instead of having to adopt a work persona). I was happy to hear that.
If you weren’t the co-founder of a blockchain analytics company, what would you be?
I have no idea! I can’t imagine such a possibility!
How we can help
Elliptic tracks 98% of all cryptoasset trading volume by market cap, and we’ve collected over 100 billion data points – preventing nation states and cybercriminals from using cryptoassets to hide their ill-gotten gains. We also boast the widest coverage of digital assets and blockchain available on the market.
Our verification, due diligence and investigative solutions mean compliance teams and investigators can track and visualize the proceeds of crime across blocks and assets in real-time – helping you achieve the highest levels of risk detection.
Contact us to find out more.
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