As shared yesterday with @tiffanygyj, I think Forensic (relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime) is a hot topic in the DeFi space.
Not only because the bridge between regulation and DeFi is being made, but also because the total amount of money lost by blockchain hackers is getting close to $22b.
Although NEAR is by design permissionless, it’s a question of time before users experience on-chain KYC. Mostly to begin with Dapps that conduct regulated activities such as trading and lending. Yet, that first / entry layer of security is often not enough and does not prevent any malicious actions down the road.
A forensic tool should be relevant from that point. As recently mentionned on another thread.
[…] Building the most secure network won’t prevent a hack. Keeping the analogy, I think companies should take for granted that they will be hacked one day, and therefore spend more resources downstream. For example, how to make sure the data the hacker has access to is useless / unexploitable.
A forensics tool like Elliptic on NEAR would be a first step. The ability to identify and track any fraudulent or malicious wallet and share this information with on-chain and off-chain partners would make real world interactions close to impossible, ultimately making the risk / reward ratio unattractive for hackers.
A practical and functional way to see that would be first, a tool that can give any first and second degree wallets in connection with a wallet identified as fraudulent. A second step, would be to offer a service to any Dapps to notify their users when they intend to perform a transaction with a wallet identified as malicious.
Just sharing some ideas.
Finally, I like the following quote (A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto by Eric Hughes).
Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know.