Circle, the Boston-headquartered FinTech startup backed by (among others) Goldman Sachs, has recently revealed it’s set to fight insider trading, ‘pump and dump’ schemes, and other forms of market manipulation through market surveillance tools.
According to a recently published press release, the fintech startup will use digital financial services company Nice Actimize’s tools to get the job done. Nice Actimize, a part of Israeli software giant Nice, offers its clients tools in the financial crime, risk, and compliance areas.
Specifically, Circle is set to use Nice Actimize’s Cloud Markets Surveillance (CMS) tool to detect and prevent potential market manipulation tactics on its own platforms, which include an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk that last year handled over $24 billion worth of crypto trades, and popular exchange Poloniex, which it acquired last year.
The company’s head regulatory counsel and chief compliance officer, Robert Bench, was quoted in the press release as saying:
Circle has adopted a strong position on policy and crypto-related regulatory issues that focuses on the safety of our customers and investors. Adapting innovative technology solutions, such as the financial markets compliance solutions from NICE Actimize, to meeting the potential needs of regulators and protecting our assets brings this commitment full circle
The move comes less than a year after investigations revealed there were ‘pump groups’ using chat apps like Telegram and Discord to manipulate cryptocurrency markets, by artificially inflating the price of cryptos with low liquidity to then dump the tokens on new investors.
Circle is notably not the only crypto firm worried about market manipulation. Earlier this month it was revealed Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, was set to provide seven different crypto exchanges market surveillance technology
