Elliptic Unveils Crime-Tracking Tool as Stablecoins Enter the Mainstream

Stablecoins are fast becoming a mainstream payment vehicle and not just for legitimate transactions. Criminals, like everyone else, would rather avoid currency risk as they move large sums of money around.That can make stablecoins like Tether's USDT and the USDC issued by Circle Internet (CRCL), whose values are pegged 1:1 to the U.S. currency, preferable to bitcoin (BTC) and other potentially volatile cryptocurrencies, said James Smith, the founder of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, even though the issuers of the dollar-backed tokens have the ability to freeze them.Billions of dollars worth of stablecoins change hands every day — $94 billion in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data — hence the need for a product like Elliptic's new due diligence…