Toko Token (TKO): The Hallmark of Crypto Integrity
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Cryptocurrency started off with the noble idea of democratizing the financial sector by providing universal accessibility to financial services through the harnessing of the decentralized and automated features of blockchain. However, as is the norm with so many other aspects of life, cryptocurrency has been hijacked by unscrupulous parties leading to the domain being rife with frauds, scams and hackings. In a way, this may be caused by the pseudo-anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies which stands in contrast with the rather primitive privacy-protection method of conventional financial institutions that involves limiting access to the private information of their users only to trusted third parties. Cryptocurrencies’ pseudo-anonymity entails making the details of transactions publicly accessible through block explorers although the identities of the transacting parties are kept hidden from public view. This level of information disclosure is similar to that adopted by stock exchanges whereby the time and size of individual stock trades are made publicly accessible through a consolidated tape, albeit without mentioning the identities of the parties behind the transactions.
Notwithstanding the pseudo-anonymity of most cryptocurrencies, some of these currencies which take the form of privacy coins go further by providing total anonymity whereby this has been a particularly thorny issue for regulators. Leading the pack for privacy coins is Monero (XMR) which uses a combination of ring signatures and stealth addresses to conceal the identities of its users. Second-in-command of the darker side of the crypto world is Zcash (ZEC) which has coined for itself a catch-phrase which goes “If Bitcoin is like http for money, Zcash is https”. In terms of its technological framework, Zcash is the first widespread application of the Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARK) cryptographic tool which allows the proving of the possession of certain information without revealing the information itself. Through its application of zk-SNARK, Zcash allows its users to make financial transactions without revealing their wallet addresses.
Another cryptocurrency which allows its users to operate in stealth mode is DASH (DASH) which offers a CoinJoin feature that obscures the origins of funds transacted on its network through a mixing protocol which utilizes an innovative decentralized network of servers called master nodes. Armed with the crypto cloak of anonymity, it is perhaps rather unsurprising that some unscrupulous parties have abused privacy coins for illegal purposes such as for the furtherance of corruption activities and Uncle Sam has had enough of these creepy-crawly crypto rats.
Stopping the U.S’ Corruption Rot
In Transparency International (TI)’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the United States (U.S) had its worst ranking in almost a decade as it recorded a low of 67 out of a maximum possible score of 100 with industry observers attributing the drop to declining trust in democratic institutions and poor oversight of pandemic-related financial aid. The dangers of corruption was aptly pointed out by the U.S President Joe Biden himself when he said back in June 2021 that “Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts and democracy itself.”
As part of the U.S government’s efforts to curtail the public scourge that is corruption, it had in December 2021 released its “United States Strategy on Countering Corruption” (“Strategy”) Pillar Three of which sets out to hold corrupt actors accountable for their actions and strive to do so by decreasing “the ability of corrupt actors to use the U.S. and international financial systems to hide assets and launder the proceeds of corrupt acts.” In this regard, the U.S government’s Department of Justice (DOJ) would be deploying its newly commissioned National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to “focus specifically on complex investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency, particularly crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and money laundering infrastructure actors” though only time will tell as to whether the DOJ have what it takes to break down the wall of anonymity built by privacy coins around their shady users.
In support of the DOJ’s efforts, even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has gotten in on the act in the U.S’ fight against crypto corruption whereby it was reported on 10 December 2021 that CIA Director William Burns had revealed at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit that the agency is working on “a number of different projects focused on cryptocurrency…to help our colleagues in other parts of the U.S. government to provide solid intelligence on what we’re seeing as well.” Nonetheless, it is not all doom and gloom for cryptocurrencies in the U.S as Pillar Two of the Strategy provides for the possible development by the U.S government of a central bank digital currency in recognition of the “efficiency, convenience, and reach of digital alternatives to cash, and accelerated the usage of and commercial trading in digital assets across the world.”
TKO as the Epitome of Crypto Integrity
In the Wild West world of crypto where anything and everything goes, Toko Token (TKO) is standing its ground when it comes to upholding the sanctity of its integrity through the gold-standard regulatory compliant status of Tokocrypto. As a regulated commodity exchange in Indonesia, Tokocrypto is subject to a host of compliance obligations particularly in relation to anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) whereby we constantly monitor the transactions carried out using TKO and would duly red-flag any suspicious activities before promptly reporting them to the regulators. For this purpose, Tokocrypto is obliged to properly maintain a record of the paper trail for the transactions involving TKO in case the regulators would require it for the purposes of their investigations into suspected AML/CTF activities.
In many ways, Tokocrypto is very much a pioneer for crypto regulation in Indonesia as we are the first entity in the country to be registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency Indonesia (BAPPEBTI) in November 2019 and we are living up to this designation through our total compliance mantra whereby we have devised an internal regulatory guidebook which helps ensure that we unfailingly comply with the applicable regulations in an utmost manner. Additionally, Tokocrypto have partnered with Merkle Science which is a Singapore-based leading predictive crypto risk and intelligence platform to detect, investigate and prevent the illegal use of TKO for money laundering or terrorism financing purposes.
Fair to say, TKO is serving as the beacon of light for the crypto domain as it is leading by example as the epitome of integrity domain where there may be just one too many grey areas.
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