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The United States Tax Service (IRS) has released a document in which it indicates its willingness to pay $ 625,000 to anyone who offers a technology capable of tracking cryptocurrency transactions such as Monero (XMR). The reward also includes those who help track Bitcoin's so-called 'second layer network', the Lightning network, or other forms of off-blockchain transactions that provide privacy to illicit actors.

Privacy cryptocurrencies, such as Monero, are the shoe of the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). So far, Monero has managed to evade transaction tracking services and is one of the preferred cryptocurrencies for making payments on the darknet. For its part, the Bitcoin Lightning network provides privacy by creating channels that, while remaining open, allow the flow of transactions without records, making it difficult to track.

It seems that the federal office has had enough and for this reason has made this offer public. The reward they offer could reach $ 625,000: First, up to $ 500,000 is offered to anyone who submits a valid, scalable proof of concept. These funds will be distributed over 8 months. Then, if the proposed technology can be upgraded and operational by the US government in less than 120 days, up to an additional $ 125,000 will be awarded.

Bounty hunters who want to participate must comply with three aspects. First, provide information that allows federal agents to track the entries and exits of transactions, which occurred in 2020, to a specific user.

Second, these bounty hunters will need to provide tools to predict the probabilities of other transactions taking place. And finally, provide a source code that allows the Tax Office to develop, modify or integrate other capabilities. All this is specified in the original document published on September 4 of this year.

The United States Tax Service also gives until September 16 of this year for interested parties to submit their proposals. This deadline would expire next week, so such a short window of time may mean that people with solutions already exist.

In the published document, the IRS emphasizes that the technology presented must allow the tracking of transactions without the need for any external agent. This would leave out agencies like Chainalysis or Ciphertrace, who have recently carried out various tests trying to trace private transactions, so far without success.

The IRS also expressly promises that this year it has earmarked up to $ 1 million for pre-selected solutions. This statement could indicate that several solutions will be considered. Likewise, they express that the proposals will be evaluated both in the technical aspect and in their implementation cost.

Why can't they just collaborate with the agencies that may have been researching these things already? Oh right, budget. Anyway it seems that the IRS is really getting agitated on how well privacy coins are aiding people who doesn't want to pay for their taxes despite using cryptocurrencies. That's the main goal of these coins and tools anyway, to prevent detection and snooping from outside sources and let people enjoy using their own money on their own terms. No one in their right mind would take that low of an offer, I guess, and in installments? Perhaps if they ramp up the budget to a million dollars that is where they would get some organizations talking to 'solve' this.

If they choose not to work with the agency that claimed to have the tools to track the transactions done through Monero, it a sign that the tools the CipherTrace delivered to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for investigations purpose is not up to the task. But, I dont why IRS and other government agency are getting tough on crypto when they never do something to support crypto mainstream which will make crypto users to comfortably pay their tax.

Burgalin_LLC, always provide the source of your news.

I find it odd that they are being so open about this, what I mean is that they are literally telling the world that they have no way to track those transactions and that they're looking for someone, anyone to save them because they are not up to the task, don't you think this is a little bit suspicious or are they that dumb? This is very similar to those lists I see about tax havens and that enumerate which are the ones that are the less cooperative with other governments, such lists basically tell people which are the best tax havens for their operations and they are doing the same with this, they are basically telling people to use Monero if they want to remain anonymous.

I know how to do it. I read about the fact that if someone owns a pool with a Monero hash rate higher than 90% of the entire network, then he can deanonymize all transactions.
The tax office has a lot of computers, even if they install a Monero miner on each computer, create their own pool called IRS Monero. The problem has been resolved.
You can send the award to my BTC address ;D

It's not that they are dumb, but this is the best way, why hire in house developers or even their own developers to create this tool? Much better to tell the world about it, offer some money, which I believed is not fair since this agencies have billions of dollars as budget to begin with.


CipherTrace claims that they have deanonymize Monero already, but this remains to be seen. And it seems that they are clouding their real intentions, they only say that they are after criminals, but I'm sure they also want to track tax evaders, IMHO.

Am I the only one that thinks this isn't about just the IRS tracking criminals or tax evaders? I'm pretty sure this is a direct assault on controlling cryptocurrency.

Well we have seen governments around the world assaulting crypto, with all the regulations and stuff, so by now we should understand that they want to track everything. The big challenge here is Monero, it will be a cat and mouse game, if someone develops a tool to deanonymize their transactions then Monero will come up with another crypto algorithm, ti or tat.

I have always thought that it is impossible to deanonymize the owner of the wallet if he does not connect it with services where the KYC procedure is needed.
I read that the darknet has its own separate market, and many coins do not leave this market, but only change their owners.
And if they are transferred to centralized exchanges, then they mix well before that.
It's a long game of cat and mouse, as developers can change algorithms

So let it up, it's the government that are chasing though, so the tools that they are going to pay to someone might be obsolete if Monero decides or develops themselves a new crypto algorithm. So it will be a waste of money of tax payers money. So this will be really a cat and mouse game, Monero completely toying and trolling the US government and even block chain analysis company.

how did you guys know ? does monero involved on simillar game before ? im not aware though , thats why im askin if monero is in new algo now . i can only feel sad to the money that are going to be wasted on this project if you guyz were saying is true that monero isnt going to agree with this idea .

 if money will be use on important projects that tax payers can see  , that wont be a big thing but catching scammers and online criminals in the form of this plan is also a good thing  .

At least there is one reported case here, Sodinokibi Ransomware to stop taking Bitcoin to hide money trail (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sodinokibi-ransomware-to-stop-taking-bitcoin-to-hide-money-trail/). So it won't be the last, that's why I guess that if someone deanonymize Monero, then another algorithm could be developed by the team and that is why it will be a watching and waiting. And the first one to blink losses the game.

https://fullycrypto.com/chainalysis-wins-625000-irs-monero-cracking-contract
Chainalysis Wins $625,000 IRS Monero-cracking Contract

"Chainalysis has won one of two contracts from the IRS to create tracing tools for Monero
The IRS advertised for candidates last month and has selected Chainalsysis and Integra, a Texas-based company
Monero transactions have been almost impossible to trace since the coin’s inception in 2014

Chainalysis has won one of two contracts from the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) to create tracing tools for the Monero cryptocurrency and Layer 2 protocols. The two contracts, worth $625,000 each, were awarded to Chainalysis, one of the pioneers of the blockchain analytics space, and Texas-based Integra FEC. The deal means that Chainalysis and Integra will now work hand in hand with the IRS in tracing Monero transactions they believe are linked to tax avoidance and other similar crimes."

I do not believe that they can do it

^^ Yes, we do believed that's what IRS intention is, to track those tax evaders hiding their money thru Monero, and that is the scary part. So the big question is that if Chainalysis and Integra can work hand and hand to developed the tools for IRS used. The time frame is 8 months, so there is a pressure for them. Let's see if Monero can withstand their reputation after this.

If it gets done in some way, I think it will be an end for the privacy coin because, after monero, they will target other privacy coins as well. Also, the IRS will eliminate these privacy coins by providing these tools to the entire world. However, I think the IRS wants to eliminate the privacy coins under the pretext of tax evaders.
Believe me, I do not know why the IRS is taking this step. Tax evaders or any other intention behind this all.

There are ways to "de-anonymize" privacy-focused cryptocurrencies as long as their users don't use it properly. The IRS could lose your track if you know how to use Bitcoin properly as well, it's just that it is too easy for them to identify users because almost nobody practices privacy protection measures. The only thing is, they will likely not gather access to much information besides who owns a certain address - or maybe there's a way to create a malicious miner/node that somehow links txs and addresses.

The sad and scary part is that if they truly get to "crack" Monero though, they'll probably never share the news until it becomes obvious for us. By then, it may be too late as everyone's privacy would be already compromised.

The war between the US intelligence services and the Monero developers has been going on for a very long time.
https://ciphertrace.com/ciphertrace-announces-worlds-first-monero-tracing-capabilities/

More than $ 6 million has been allocated for these purposes.
https://govtribe.com/vendors/ciphertrace-inc-dot-7e0x3

The Monero developers have released a new innovation that further increases the privacy of payments(Triptych):
https://www.monerooutreach.org/stories/monero-triptych.html

It's very interesting to watch this battle

I'm not surprised, but as you have said, this is going to be very interesting, Monero though is one step ahead or even two, with the latest innovation, latest improvement if we can call that. But they should have keep this somewhat a secret though, to let the government guessing, well they could have made it public but just a teaser to excite Monero users and then government scratching their heads trying to find out what it is. So let's see how this chess match will unfold and who are going to make the first blunder move to open the games wide open.

I have a feeling that anymore additional steps from these Monero developers and we might see some kind of special ban against Monero in the USA. I remember that South Korea and Japan did the same thing years ago on requesting exchanges to remove Anonymity based cryptocurrencies in their platform which they did. Yes Monero will still be available in other ways but the thing is if if users have been found holding Monero they might go in jail because of it so really Monero might just be digging their own graves if they did further steps.

Well, in vain they did it. Any cryptocurrency is safe as long as it does not interfere with centralized services that require the KYC procedure.
Now all exchanges are working with special services, and they have removed their informants.
The only way is to create your own mining pool with the highest hash rate, or to control large pools, then you can access the information and decrypt the data.

Has there been any progress on this since Chainalysis and Integra got the contracts? Chainalysis CEO claiming two weeks ago about Monero having a "limited future" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/10/13/chainalysis-reveals-huge-growth-in-government-bitcoin-crypto-and-blockchain-interest-makes-dire-monero-warning/#7ef06fdb5a8d) does not count. Meanwhile, only radio silence about Integra.

Usually when a company berates a rival technology by predicting its demise it usually means they were unsuccessful in competing with them (I will never forget Microsoft ex-CEO Steve Ballmer's infamous iPhone criticisms).


Triptych has not been deployed yet AFAIK but once/if it is, it will be another huge headache for Chainalysis to deal with. It makes me think a prototype that can break Triptych won't be ready anytime soon, or even in a few months.

This might be true since all steps I have seen for limiting the availability and use of anonimity focused cryptocurrencies are all in a phase of banning them in crypto exchanges but the thing is the government will always have a chance to go into drastic measures when a certain situation happens, what I mean about that is when criminals starts to shift more and more on these privacy coins I think the government will not just be paying any devs to track them anymore but just create a law banning them.

Why is the IRS paying so much to find technology to track cryptocurrencies? Instead, the US government should accept cryptocurrencies and make them legal in the country, and then they can naturally obtain taxes without resorting to such means and pay these additional costs.
The world's governments must understand that this is the era of cryptocurrencies, and they should start by accepting them and setting regulations for them instead of resorting to these methods.