Blockchain analysis company Elliptic has identified potential money laundering patterns on the Bitcoin blockchain after training an artificial intelligence (AI) model with a record-breaking 200 million transactions. In a paper co-authored with researchers from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Elliptic stated that it used these transactions to learn a set of "shapes" that money laundering exhibits in cryptocurrency and accurately classify new criminal activity. Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson said in an email, "The laundering techniques identified by the model have been identified because they are prevalent in Bitcoin." "Cryptocurrency laundering practices will evolve over time as they become less effective, but one advantage of AI/deep learning methods is that they will automatically identify new laundering patterns as they emerge."