Lurking in 600 Fraud Groups, He Aims to Intercept the Money of the Black Market
Amid the rapid growth of stablecoins, which reached a $300 billion market cap in 2025, Professor Zhou Yajin, founder of blockchain security firm BlockSec, is combating crypto-enabled crime like Southeast Asian telecom scams. With a background in mobile security and academia, Zhou shifted BlockSec from smart contract auditing to real-time attack interception and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions.
His team infiltrated over 600 Telegram groups used by criminal networks, uncovering sophisticated human trafficking operations where victims are lured into scam compounds. These groups use "labor guarantee platforms" similar to e-commerce systems, with transactions settled in USDT on the Tron blockchain due to its low fees and ease of use. Through automated monitoring, BlockSec tracked $12 million in illegal transactions linked to a single platform, finding that 34.9% of funds flowed to OKX hot wallets.
BlockSec also developed a mempool surveillance system to intercept hacks within Ethereum’s 12-second block time window, using higher gas fees to front-run and block malicious transactions—successfully rescuing 2,909 ETH in one instance. Zhou emphasizes that security must become seamless and invisible as crypto evolves from a "wild west" to a regulated financial frontier.
marsbit01/06 08:37
