Frequently Asked Questions

Crystal Blockchain is an advanced blockchain explorer and analytics tool that provides a solution for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) and crypto regulators to untangle blockchain addresses and transactions, along with other blockchain entity connections.

Through an unrivalled investigative toolset, users can confidently interact with and manage risk for virtual assets and asset connections. This enables organizations to operate in a safe and secure environment, while allowing compliance officers to do their job more efficiently.

Crystal helps to understand where cryptocurrencies are flowing from and to. By providing identification for entities behind transactions, Crystal enables risk-based assessment so law enforcement agencies and compliance teams can be certain about the provenance of funds.

Crystal’s main customers are banks and financial institutions, virtual asset service providers (VASPs), crypto exchanges and businesses, and government agencies. More details on specific features and platform solution use cases can be found on Crystal’s designated customer pages:

• Banks and Financial Institutions
• Crypto Exchanges and Businesses
• Government Agencies

Crystal currently supports Bitcoin, Tether, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum (including ERC-20, ERC-721) and Ripple, 60+ newly supported DeFi protocols, with more coins to be added soon.

Crystal provides real-time risk assessment capabilities for evaluating and comparing risk associated with multiple blockchain transactions and their connections. The platform gives a risk score based on blockchain interactions for a comprehensive assessment. In addition, users can set up alerts based on different parameters and changes that occur with monitored transactions (KYT). Users can utilize Crystal’s monitoring systems to improve AML/ KYC procedures.

Yes, it can. Crystal constantly updates the platform database to provide up-to-date information on thousands of dark market service addresses. In addition to providing identification for a broad array of darknet entities, the Crystal team has produced in-depth market analysis and trend reports to ensure Crystal users have full confidence in our awareness and understanding of the darknet. You can find our report on crypto activity in the darknet by following this link.

Crystal collects and analyzes data from 1,500 different public sources on a regular basis, assessing the ownership of addresses that can be publicly found on the internet, as well as fund transfers through online platforms to assess compliance procedures. In addition to this, Crystal purchases data from reliable vendors and consistently monitors the internet on the subject of malware attacks, thefts, and any other illicit activities involving cryptocurrencies.

Crystal continuously updates its list of entities, so if a major exchange is missing, the team is likely to be working on adding it. Also, you can create your own list of risky addresses and will be warned if you come across them using the Explorer, Visualization or Tracking tools.

However, should there be any mistakes or gaps in Crystal’s data, please send an e-mail to contact@crystalblockchain.com with a brief explanation of what mistake or gap was found.

Within the Explorer tab in the web app, users can find and search the full list of known entities within the Crystal solution.

In Crystal’s default setup, entities that for example, perform illegal activities, or exchanges that have lower KYC barriers, would have a high risk score. KYC-compliant exchanges and known mining pools, on the other hand, have low risk scores, and each of those entity risk scores also affect other entities that interact with these known low or high-risk entities, up to 100,000 hops.

Also, there are two types of risk labels on the platform:

1. Supplied by an expert: for known entities
2. Calculated by the algorithm: for addresses whose owner is unknown

The first set of labels are assigned based on manual expert analysis of publicly available information (eg. business type, or compliance with KYC/AML rules) and this can be configured.

The second one is determined by the algorithm based on a risk score profile set up by the user.

Risk score types can be fully customized by the user and can be adjusted according to the customer's needs.

There are three ways of using the Crystal Blockchain solution:

1. Crystal Expert: is accessed through the web-application, runs on Crystal servers, and is located in a datacenter in the EU.
2. Crystal API: is accessed through the REST API. The application runs on Crystal servers, and is located in a datacenter in the EU.
3. Crystal Pro: is accessed through the web application, and deployed and run on a customer’s servers/infrastructure (on-premise application).

A more detailed comparison of Crystal’s analytics solutions can be found here.

There are two main differences between the Pro and Expert versions:

• The Expert version is hosted by Crystal, and Pro is hosted on the customer's servers.
• Users can privately input their data into Crystal Pro. In addition, the Pro version gives direct access to Crystal’s database and data.

If your trial license has expired, please contact sales@crystalblockchain.com to extend your license, otherwise please contact the team at support@crystalblockchain.com.

The Crystal sales team is hard at work ensuring customers get the best experience, so if you have an urgent question regarding trial or pricing - please, reach out to the sales manager you have been in touch with up till now.

For new customers - please, fill out the form here so the team can get in touch to schedule a demo or answer any questions.