NewTech Friday: Bilic – Investigating and preventing digital asset fraud
British startup Bilic is one of the selected startups of the fourth edition of the LHOFT Catapult: Kickstarter program. Its Co-Founder & CTO, Saminu Salisu, tells us about the firm and his simple yet powerful solution that provides actionable intelligence on digital assets.
British startup Bilic is one of the selected startups of the fourth edition of the LHOFT Catapult: Kickstarter program. Its Co-Founder & CTO, Saminu Salisu, tells us about the firm and his simple yet powerful solution that provides actionable intelligence on digital assets.
What led to the creation of Bilic?
As co-founders we ourselves became victims of scams and hacks in the crypto and NFT space, and felt lonely, betrayed, but in equal measure intrigued. Why was this happening so frequently? How were perpetrators being held to account? Why was there so little support for victims at an institutional level? Blockchain security risks increasingly became the main deterrent for people entering the crypto space, with many customers choosing to leave the space entirely after either falling victim to blockchain fraud, or losing trust.
As blockchain and crypto enthusiasts we saw obvious gaps in the market that our experience and skillsets could help fill. The current thresholds for cases is above $100,000, however with the median reported loss being $2,600 we realized many victims were not able to access support, and more importantly critical intelligence was being lost by simply not being valued.
Therefore we are aiming to create a market-driven approach, via the creation of an investigation marketplace that will pool resources and intelligence, allowing for both higher rates of crime identification, wallet seizure, asset recovery and, importantly, intelligence sharing.
Could you present Bilic’s offer?
We are a blockchain forensics and cyber security company building data analytics software to tackle financial crime on the blockchain.
We are offering training and awareness, prevention, investigations and recovery services. Our 4 quadrants include several product and managed services offerings. Criminal activities using blockchain include but are not limited to stolen ID or IP, blackmailing, ransomware, money laundering, financing of terrorism, sanctions evasion, etc. Such cybercrimes are predicted to cause over $10 trillion in damage per year worldwide by 2025 – and they are relevant to crypto and non-crypto businesses, especially with the increasing adoption of blockchain and de-fi technology by large banks, enterprises and governments.
What's coming next for Bilic?
The next phase will include heavy marketing of our investigation services below current market thresholds. We plan to:
• Set up an intelligence data warehouse and intelligence marketplace
• Research the use of Tornado and other crypto tumblers/mixers to create new intelligence data inputs
• Develop market and economic mechanisms for communities/DAOs investigating cases
• Advertise TutuSend service, our secure peer-to-peer digital asset escrow solution
• Build firewalls, more risk scores and compliance services
• Set up free and exclusive reports and training programs
• Advertise VAI and VAC Certification, our investigation training programs.
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