Government prosecutors and taxation authorities will use artificial intelligence to scan the blockchain and “solve crime” within the next five years, according to the CEO of Chainalysis. 

“It’s not much further away,” said Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager, asked by Cointelegraph whether generative AI agents could sift through the blockchain for governments within three to five years.

“In some years from now, crypto would more or less be the only way you would want to solve crime, because it’s far more scalable, it’s far easier, it’s very transparent, you can do it internationally, and you can see a lot more insights,” Gronager said at the Token2049 conference in Singapore on Sept. 20.

The CEO said automating these investigations with generative AI — as opposed to a mass of government agents — would be more efficient, as it stops different departments from stepping over each other.

Gronager speaking with Cointelegraph at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. Source: Cointelegraph

These AI agents could even find crypto tax dodgers, but Gronager says those who cashed out an ordinary crypto transaction five years ago or more will “probably get away with it.”

“[There’s] a likelihood that you [didn’t] end up not paying your tax, not because you didn’t want to, but because you didn’t know how to.”

But with crypto tax lawyers and software tools now more advanced, Gronager doesn’t think that excuse will suffice any longer. The United States Internal Revenue Service and other tax departments are already using AI to track potential tax evaders.

Related: Germany seizes 47 crypto exchanges tied to ‘underground economy’

Gronager noted that crypto mixer protocols and privacy tokens like Monero ( XMR ) would make it considerably harder for AI agents to track criminals.

But while the “absolute amount” of crypto crime is increasing, Gronager said privacy transactions now comprise less than 1% of all crypto transactions.

“If you look at privacy coin growth over the last five to 10 years, that has not followed the same growth path as all as virtually everything else.”

Chainalysis noted in a July 11 report that almost $100 billion in funds  have been transferred from known illicit wallets to crypto exchanges or alternative conversion services since 2019.

Magazine: AI drone ‘hellscape’ plan for Taiwan, LLMs too dumb to destroy humanity: AI Eye