The IRS offers a $625,000 bounty to anyone who can break Monero and Lightning
The United States Internal Revenue Services (IRS) has offered a bounty of up to $625,000 to anyone who can break purportedly untraceable privacy coins like Monero (XMR) as well as trace transactions on Bitcoin’s (BTC) Lightning Network. The IRS noted that XMR is being used for all future ransom demands and transactions by ransomware group Sodinokibi due to its “privacy concerns”.
Privacy coins are a key strategy to help criminals obfuscate their transactions, with the IRS stating:
Blockchain analytics firm CypherTrace claims to have a new tool that can trace Monero transactions, although its capabilities are yet to be confirmed. CipherTrace chief financial analyst John Jeffries said the tool can track stolen Monero, or XMR used for illegal transactions, back to the source such as in ransomware cases.
