San Francisco, July 1 (TIWN) Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has provided sophisticated tools to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to help it track transactions across Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies.

According to a report in Intercept, Coinbase sold an analytics software license to ICE for $29,000 in August last year, followed by a software purchase potentially worth $1.36 million the next month.  "ICE now has access to a variety of forensic features provided through Coinbase Tracer, the company's intelligence-gathering tool (formerly known as Coinbase Analytics)," the report said on Thursday.  Coinbase Tracer allows clients, in both government and the private sector, to trace transactions through Blockchain.  A company spokesperson said that "Coinbase Tracer sources its information from public sources and does not make use of Coinbase user data."  The software is offered on an "as a service" cloud subscription basis.  ICE is a division of the US Department of Homeland Security and also looks into "broader transnational crimes as well, including various forms of financial offenses".