London, UK-based Asset Reality has reportedly raised $4.91 million in seed funding to develop solutions for lost or stolen crypto asset recovery. The funding round was led by Framework Ventures, TechStars, SGH Capital, and Chris Adelsbach (Outrun Ventures).
Asset Reality is reported to be planning to deploy the funds for operational expansion and to boost its engineering staff. While asset recovery has traditionally been present for decades, the decentralized format and cryptocurrency transactions’ irreversibility is a novel challenge.
Enter, Asset Reality—the ultimate destination to track and recover stolen or lost digital assets.
Aidan Larkin, CEO and co-founder, Asset Reality, says, the existing asset recovery system only recovers about 1% of criminal proceeds globally, with the emergence of digital assets adding more complexity to those efforts.
Certik, a blockchain security firm, terms 2022 to be the worst year for cryptocurrency hacks, scams, and attacks. The total cryptocurrency loss in 2022 to illicit activities stands at $3.7 billion.
Certik tweeted:
https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1609135671679062017
The infamous 2023 cryptocurrency hack of the hot and cold wallets of Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dash Jr. totalled 200 bitcoin ($3.5 million). Offering assistance to Luke Dash Jr., Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO, Binance, tweeted:
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1609664451145334784
Larkin says, not everyone is a developer who can get CZ’s attention, and this is why we exist.
Larkin “If someone like that comes on to the platform, we’re taking the data about the loss that they’ve incurred and we’re broadcasting that through our partners and through the analytics tools. So the first action is to do exactly what CZ mentioned.
The Asset Reality team claims to have specific asset recovery expertise, specifically in “managing and liquidating” bitcoin pertaining to the Silk Road case.
The future that Larkin envisions is the one where stolen or lost crypto can be easily recovered. As for the expertise and experience requirements,
Larkin says, Asset Reality has a team of ex-law enforcement and private sector asset recovery practitioners. We’ve investigated, we’ve seized, we’ve recovered, we’ve been to court.
We manage seized [non-fungible tokens] for the Belgian government, for example. They will be sold by auction when the court order is granted, if the person is found guilty.
