The SEC wants to run Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP nodes

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking for contractors that would run Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP nodes on its behalf.

The regulator said the nodes will support its efforts to monitor risks and improve compliance, despite dozens of free blockchain explorers and analytic tools being available online.

U.S. market regulator wants to run its own nodes on Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The community's distrust of the SEC increased in the past couple of days when the news about the agency's newest attempt to track blockchain transactions broke.

According to Trustnodes, the SEC is planning to run its own Bitcoin and Ethereum nodes, in addition to "As many as possible of the following blockchains: Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Zcash, EOS, NEO, and XRP Ledger."

Data like hashing algorithms, hashing power, mining difficulty and rewards, transaction quantity and size, coin supply, and blockchain size will also be tracked, it said on the SEC's request.

News about the SEC's planned dive into blockchain analytics got mixed reactions from the crypto community.

Inviting the prying eyes of the government into blockchain has the potential to jeopardize the privacy crypto transactions have.

The SEC didn't reveal what it plans to do with the data it acquires from its contractors.

There are currently dozens of advanced blockchain explorers available, so many were left wondering why the SEC would devote so much of its resources to outsourcing.