DOJ says use of privacy coins is 'indicative of possible criminal conduct'
Privacy coins are getting more attention than ever from the U.S. government. A new report from the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that crypto traders dealing with coins like Monero, Dash, and Zcash are engaging in “high-risk activities.”According to the report by the U.S. Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force called Cryptocurrency: An Enforcement Framework released on Oct. 8, anonymity enhanced cryptocurrencies (AECs) can undermine existing anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regulations put in place by businesses engaged in virtual asset....
Related News
“Dash is technically no more a ‘privacy coin’ than Bitcoin,” according to Perkins Coie. So why did Shapeshift delist it? Cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift recently delisted three privacy coins: Dash, Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR). This was an unexpected move to say the least, given the exchange’s historic commitment to privacy.As a noncustodial platform, Shapeshift did not impose user identification requirements on traders in its early days, although this began to change with the gradual introduction of a mandatory membership model, compliant with Know Your Customer rules, as of 2018.Why....
Ahmed Ghappour explained that sanctioning ideas can lead to criminalizing harmless associations with no ties to other criminal conduct. While some think the Tornado Cash ban may negatively impact other projects focusing on privacy, others believe that these projects will keep pushing forward and keeping their commitments to anti-censorship and decentralization. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Ahmed Ghappour, the general counsel at the privacy-focused project Nym Technologies, shared insights on the importance of privacy in the crypto space, how to balance the interests of regulators....
Following the U.S. government prohibiting the use of the ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash, the crypto economy’s top privacy coins lost more than 8% in USD value the following evening after the ban announcement. The top privacy coins like monero and zcash managed to recover the losses two days later, but during the last 24 hours, the top privacy coins by market capitalization today are around $6.44 billion, down 3% from the day prior.
While the Top Privacy Coins Have Seen Some Recovery, Most Took a Market Beating Last Week When OFAC Sanctioned the Crypto Mixing Service....
Privacy coins remain a bone of contention when it comes to governments trying to regulate crypto transactions but that has not diminished their popularity. As more blockchains become easier to track, crypto investors have moved to privacy coins in a bid to better conceal their financial footprints. So as the popularity of these digital assets […]
2020 has apparently been the year of privacy wallets, as more exchanges onboard KYC requirements. Elliptic, a leading firm in blockchain analytics, has found major shifts in recent trends in illicit crypto usagPer the firm's Dec. 9 study, the proportion of Bitcoin transactions that the firm has linked to criminal activity is way down, certainly relative to its 2012 peak:Nonetheless, bad actors continue finding new ways of placing ill-gotten gains via crypto. Elliptic noted a slight rise in crypto mixing usage, but a major increase in privacy wallets:Increasing legal pressure and criminal....