Following the Money is a new Q&A series that spotlights how Chainalysis customers use our products in the real world — from compliance teams and investigators to pioneers driving crypto adoption.
Nic Bodenstein is the AML Operations manager at Luno, based in South Africa.
What’s something Chainalysis helped you explain to someone outside your team?
This year marks our 10th year of partnership with Chainalysis and much of our early days as a compliance team was spent not only on investigations but on education and empowering law enforcement to understand crypto. Chainalysis Reactor has been an essential part of our toolkit in dispelling the myth that crypto is anonymous. Reactor graphs have been the easiest way to show that you can put names and faces to crypto addresses.
What’s the most interesting thing about working at Luno?
Working across global markets across the EU, Africa and Asia, but with a particular focus on emerging markets has seen Luno be a first mover for exciting new products where we see real consumer need. Whether that’s the first staking product in Nigeria, the first Shariah compliant product in Malaysia, and now launching a full suite of tokenized stocks in South Africa, we really do do something new everyday!
How do you use Chainalysis in a team setting — solo sleuthing or shared missions?
A little bit of both, I love a solo deep dive into complex investigations but collaborating as a team is essential for success. Chainalysis has made it easy to work on investigations in a collaborative way and sharing Reactor graphs is something we do everyday.
How would you explain what you do to your grandma?
Simply put, we are a group of passionate compliance professionals who come into work everyday with the mission to stop bad people from doing bad things with crypto, and to protect vulnerable people at the same time. Big picture, we’re upgrading the world to a better financial system in a responsible and safe way.
What’s your all-time favorite meme coin?
I will get in trouble with the Luno team if I don’t say WIF, it’s the peoples’ favorite – we have 100 spin off slack emojis of dogwifhat.
How do you unplug — if you ever do?
I’m not one to really switch off, but while I work to mitigate risk in my day job, I welcome it on the weekends. Come end of the week you can find me out trail running or hurtling down a singletrack on my mountain bike. Apart from that, I’m at the braai in true South African style.
Where do you see the crypto industry going in the next 5-10 years?
The biggest shift we’ll see in the coming years is institutional adoption of crypto and a convergence of DeFi and TradFi. We can expect to see big movements in stable coin remittance, custody services and tokenised investment opportunities. Naturally we will also see clearer regulation emerge in the next 5-10 years and with that some welcome stability.
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