Bitcoin Forum

If you guys remember, one of the major bitcoin mixer - bitmixer was closed in 2017 and the owner stated that after deep investigation, he could confirm that the most anonymous coin for transactions was - Monero. We all also know that this altcoins is known for it's anonimity.

https://i.imgur.com/yDERAmk.jpg

But right now, as it seems, crypto analytics firm - CipherTrace announced that they are capable of tracing monero transactions (stolen money, illegal transactions, etc) and they already have filed two patents. They made this tool as a part of the project with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and they have been working on this since 2019.

What do you guys think about it? According to the structure of monero transactions (rings...) will they really be able to trace it? Or just another hype?

I think this is an overstatement. Some structures could not create a tool to track transactions for Monero network (obviously, they would not have written about it if they had such a tool), so they decided to pretend to have achieved some success. Typical cheap move.

The IRS offers a $625,000 bounty to anyone who can break Monero and Lightning (https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-irs-offers-a-625-000-bounty-to-anyone-who-can-break-monero-and-lightning). The project announced to give offers and big awards in September 2019 by the United States Internal Revenue Service.

Details can be downloaded from https://beta.sam.gov/opp/3b7875d5236b47f6a77f64c19251af60/view?index=opp


Last year, CipherTrace develops Monero tracing tool to aid US DHS investigations (https://cointelegraph.com/news/ciphertrace-develops-monero-tracing-tool-to-aid-us-dhs-investigations) and 4 days ago (20 Nov 2020) CipherTrace Files Two Monero Cryptocurrency Tracing Patents (https://ciphertrace.com/ciphertrace-files-two-monero-cryptocurrency-tracing-patents/). From their report, I see other currencies are on their radar and might be delisted from ShapeShift exchange (ZCash, DASH). CoinBase does not accept Monero.

Its just a fud they say. You need to check this thread for more details about this fud https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286887.20

Remember that IRS was about to pay 600,000USD for anyone who can break Monero (XMR), Ciphertrace claim seems only a fud base on the discussion, and in fact after the fud XMR price only rise up.

Monero has developers and of course people that run the show. They know exactly the threats they face and they have contingencies on how to combat such threats. I don't think they will just stare at it and wait for them to fall. They will fight and there might be signs that Monero is trying to strengthen itself. We just have to wait for further developments as time passes. I bought this coin and I am interested in what the developers will do to protect them from being manipulated by big finance.

In the past I've know Monero (XMR) to be a strict privacy coin thanks to the team, even when miners are using asic to mine this coin the team started changing algorithm from the old cryptonight to cryptonight-xmr and many more, if there is a way to trace Monero then there is a breach, it means that Monero isn't capable of been a privacy coin anymore, it's purpose should be 100% privacy, now it's on the team to add more breach proof to the system

0xMR over XMR? Are you kidding me? Monero is way better than any privacy coins in crypto space, I'm sure that is a tool is available to track Monero it will be hidden from the public, I don't believe there is such tool, not until there is proof that Monero blockchain is penetrable, right now it's like FUD, XMR is currently mooning though, fill up your bags

Don't know for sure. We don't even know whether that tool really exist or not and whether it could track down monero transaction so our opinion here gonna be a wild hunch. But, expect monero to get attacked by the government due to its increasing popularity and if the government really know how to trace monero transaction then probably we gonna see some people busted anytime soon.
After all privacy coin always has that shady image in the eyes of the government and it's all really to be expected.

It is actually easy for anyone to say anything they want just to get attention but when it gets to the real deal, they lag behind. As it stands now, they can claim to achieve that, but until we start seeing results then we will know the truth. However, I find this as a fud, Monero is an old privacy coin and the best at that, and for it to remain in such way means the team are always trying their possible best to maintain their features. Also, owing to the fact that Monero is all about privacy and anonymity, it means that for it to survive till now even when most people are against it shows the team are on top of their game, hence it I think I can say that, the team will keep trying their best to maintain their platform's goals and with such news, they will even work harder.
Therefore, I see it as a fud and not the end of Monero but possible platform advancement.

Interesting timing for the more and more "persuasive" news about Monero's death.
You know that in a couple of days Monero's emission will drop under Bitcoin's? And since crypto winter has ended, I'd say that somebody wants to grab cheap coins while they stay cheap.

I think that Monero tracking may be done only in very few specific situations (laboratory specific tests), and those situations don't happen much (or at all) "in the wild", but a company needs advertising, isn't it?

What would Monero stopp to implement changes that revert or prevent everything that CipherTrace has worked out to trace the transactions? I mean that should be possible, right? And I still don't really believe these news either. Only when they really manage to trace transaction. Now it's just rumors.

The volume of Monero still keeps staying strong. I think someone is trying to accumulate more before it explodes. The sudden spike in volume on September 10 (40x) is also really suspicious, how is this explainable?

What? Monero still remains the very best privacy coin in this industry and it is not overstatement, Bitcoin privacy has been compromised but not that of Monero. Although there might be some sort of tools that might been able to trace it transaction but that will be later time when the technology advances beyond this stage we are right now. 

As you can see Monero team aren't even saying anything about this because it's not real, homeland security my foot, if they have this so called tool they won't dare utter a word about it, lol this is so laughable, good move U.S department of homeland security, welcome to crypto world

Monero is a top altcoin so it should be driven by the current bitcoin Bullrun just like XRP, ETH and BCH, they all revaluates once bullrun starts, I'm not surprised that Monero is over 100$ already, this is just the beginning, if Bitcoin goes over 20k this time all top altcoins, privacy or not will pump big time, let homeland security keeps their toy called tool for tracking Monero, it's a big white lie

Never underestimate Monero team, if this is true they would have adjust their security already, maybe homeland security is trying to pull some strings in the shadows? Maybe expecting Monero to make some mistakes? Well such tools should be hidden if truly it exists like U.S homeland security claimed

as long as its not proven yet, monero still be best privacy coin in crypto market. every one could claim they found tools to track monero transaction , but to make crypto community believe on it they must provide document that record tracing monero. and i think monero dev team will not remain silent and do improvement in their coins.

This is an interesting subject, is there any confirmation on about how they do it? Is there any ways they give information about how they trace it? If they can't give any information about the vulnerability of the Monero I don't think they are telling the truth.

The claims they are making are not simple but then i am not sure how they are able to trace these transactions as there are many levels to their encryption and what method they exploited is yet to be known. For us to know whether these claims are legit we need to wait for a much longer time until someone is arrested by the authorities for the crimes they done with Monero .

Well, it's not like that at all, according to the article published on cointelegraph (https://cointelegraph.com/news/privacy-coins-no-more-ciphertrace-files-patents-for-tracing-monero-transactions), one of the Monero outreach representative said that such claims are highly suspicious. It means that they deny the fact that CipherTrace will be able to trace transactions as they claim.

Why do you say that crypto winter has ended?
Btw I agree with you, this is kind of marketing strategy when you claim something that looks like unclaimable. Monero has the reputation to be the most anonymous one, by targeting it, company gains attention of people: If they are able to find weak dots in such a currency, then there is nothing they can't do...

Many third party entities are paying hackers to penetrate Monero privacy security and it's never been possible for them till today, if this Ciphertrace can really trace Monero transactions I don't see any reason why they should announce it because Monero can easily patch things up, it's like spreading useless FUD because it's impenetrable for them lol

Mostly the altcoin will sustain in market over a period and it will change for sure. I mean it will make a funeral path for sure. So we should use the opportunity and inverse in it and get profit from. If you feel like a end, just sold your holding at good price. Then you will get more profit as compared to selling at low price.

there are people that invest in Montero for profits because Montero can grow in value due to its utility which was for privacy , people and criminals use it for privacy but if its primary purpose is destroyed the coins value can also go down because investors will leave the coin . There's already two case as the op stated and that can be a proof  .  He missed the link but I googled it and found this out https://decrypt.co/40284/us-homeland-security-can-now-track-privacy-crypto-monero?amp=1 .

I also found another link on cointelegraph ; https://cointelegraph.com/news/ciphertrace-develops-monero-tracing-tool-to-aid-us-dhs-investigations/amp . They look legit and not a clickbait

Crypto transactions are transactions that are indeed private in nature and basically that is what causes many people to think that crypto is an alternative to money laundering, but if there is a technology that can track every crypto (monero) transaction it seems that is a pretty good thing according to me personally because that certainly will reduce the occurrence of fraud in cryptocurrency and maybe there will even be many countries regulating crypto in the future. And if I'm not mistaken right now the Monero team is also working on a project called "Kovri", which is basically trying to improve the privacy aspects of Monero even further, so they also are working to increase Monero's scalability.

It may be a fake news with a expectation.But we can't say it's a end of coin until the official development team have his words on it. And it should end on all his trading platform.Don't believe the fake news to the market.It was easy to spread a rumor to the open media like this forum.

I think it's fake news or the organization planned to FUD Monero, moreover Monero team are not saying a word about this so it doesn't matter I guess,  also I though homeland security likes doing their things in the dark, why bring this to the public? So that criminals using Monero for illegal funding can panic or what?

I don't think this is the end of Monero. While government agencies have offered bounties with the purpose of tracing down every Monero transaction, their efforts will eventually die in vain. That's largely because of the open source and decentralized nature of crypto. The Monero project will continue to adapt itself to the latest threats in cyberspace, becoming stronger and resilient than ever. With a hard fork taking place every 6 months, developers can easily strengthen the privacy of the XMR blockchain in order to render government efforts worthless. It's a like a "cat and mouse" game if you ask me.

Besides, Monero isn't the only privacy coin available in the crypto/Blockchain space. There are other privacy coins with unique anonymization techniques, which prove to be quite a challenge for governments to regulate thoroughly. Surveillance/analytics tools won't be able to catch up with the constant changes in anonymization techniques used by many privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies in cyberspace. The government might as well give up in trying to hunt down "malicious" actors on privacy coins. Their intentions are not to put an end to criminal activity on privacy coins, but rather invade people's privacy in order to get what they want (which is complete surveillance and total control). As long as Monero remains decentralized and private, it'll be regarded a threat to the existing monetary system. Given that surveillance companies have been unable to provide proof of their claims (like CipherTrace being able to track & trace Monero transactions), everything is just about hype more than anything else. It's a strategy used by the government in order to scare away people from using Monero. But they'll eventually fail as the crypto/Blockchain space has grown into a force to reckon with. Just my opinion :)

Presently XMR price is 134$ and it's still very bullish, XMR team don't have time for all those fake news about Ciphertrace having a solution to track Monero transactions, this is why this altcoin is created for, to make transactions anonymous and it works, if Ciphertrace find a way then that's good for them, they should concentrate on putting that into action first because boosting about it

This is not the first time that I am seeing people say that they are able to trace Monero, I don’t know this for sure and how they can do it, maybe it is possible or maybe not. But, one thing I have also known from time is that Monero is the only cryptocurrency that is really anonymous, and then when I come to think about it, these cryptocurrencies are created by people and some of those people who worked on these projects are developers who might possibly be working for the government by now.

If someone will be able to create something anonymous, wouldn’t that person or someone with the same knowledge as he or she have an idea on how to break down that project?

I think it's only a form of advertisement, and as we know the crypto industry easily reacts to negative news and misinformation, and I don't believe this crap until it wasn't proven true, CipherTrace needs to prove it. in well-documented position and not just on a piece of paper. But if it's true I believe that Monero will find any solution regarding this issue but for now that it has no concrete evidence let's wait and see.

In my opinion it's not the end of Monero because each project has its own style of dissemination or even no dissemination at all. We can say that Monero needs to undergo a market adaptation despite having a considerable value in the last few days and its weekly increase varies around 12% but leaving the speculation aside I believe that with the advance of the high Monero can follow the values due to the large number of investors and community supporters.

Exactly. I don't think anyone has been able to "crack" Monero yet. The code is open for anyone to improve it in case flaws are discovered in the long run. With Monero being a decentralized and open source cryptocurrency, it's easy enough to detect privacy vulnerabilities. The network upgrades every 6 months in order to maintain ASIC-resistance and improve its privacy techniques. It's practically impossible to be able to successfully track down XMR transactions on the blockchain, given how frequently the network changes over time. Surveillance authorities and/or companies are going to need to adapt their techniques every time, in order to stay ahead of the game. This process is time-consuming and costly, leaving government's efforts in vain.

If CipherTrace's claims are true, then developers should act quickly by strengthening Monero's privacy techniques. I've seen somewhere that they're planning to add the Dandelion Protocol to the Blockchain in order to improve a person's anonymity on the Blockchain. This, alongside the use of Tor + VPN, should make your transactions completely anonymous. One thing for sure is that no system is perfect. We should take necessary precautions to secure our anonymity just in case. As long as the Monero project continues to deliver constant development and innovation, it'll be able to stand the test of time. Just my opinion :)

If someone break the privacy usecase, isnt it became useless coin? Or maybe there will be some Fork to upgrade the code. im not really sure

I don't think if privacy can be compromised, Monero will "end."
The Crypto market is so irrational that coins that are a blatant scam, have been hacked, only useful as memes, etc., can exist for a long time.
However, price-wise, it's difficult to reach top-10 again because of tail emission and limited market (some countries ban Monero).

this is an interesting discussion it's indeed that many people claimed that monero is one of the most anonymous coin well i have doubts that it was true and if it's true why don't they publicly reveal it or they could also be true and if so then there's no such thing as  anonymous coin?

Dandelion is already part of Monero for almost a year.


CipherTrace's claims are not true. Their CEO was interviewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5rtd3md11g

And CipherTrace said on twitter: Nobody can deterministically trace Monero transactions yet.

https://twitter.com/davejevans/status/1330008956270374918

Pretty sure monero privacy mechanism will be hard to be cracked. Even if that happen, we will see some fork happen to upgrade the code then.

It depends on whether they really can trace it and how much time it requires to do it. If they need to dedicate significant resources to each transaction people will divide big money into many transactions.

Is somebody going to hire a tracing company to find out where every 1000 dollars worth of coins went in the network? I don't think so.

They say there's no lock that cannot be unlocked and there's no perfect murder so you could expect with enough work somebody someday would trace privacy coins.

Today the price of Monero is already $ 154, which means that the price of this coin has increased significantly over the past month.  Therefore, nothing happens to Monero as a highly anonymous coin.  You can declare anything you want, but you only need to judge the events and draw conclusions based on deeds.  This coin has proven itself well for a long time, and you shouldn't even pay attention to such statements.

^^^--- Are you people Morons incapable of comprehending a thread or are you all just sig spamming?


Febo very clearly points out right here that the CEO of the company that is claiming to break Monero is stating in SIMPLE English that it HAS NOT BEEN BROKEN.  DO YOU IDIOTS comprehend this?????

Well that's a relief. I was always skeptical about CipherTrace's claims related to tracing Monero transactions, as they were unable to provide proof to the public. It looks like it was all part of a scheme to scare away people off the Monero blockchain. After all, governments don't want people to achieve true financial sovereignty. Now that we know CipherTrace's claims are false, we can finally confirm that Monero is rock-solid when it comes to achieving full-fledged privacy. With the XMR blockchain upgrading itself every 6 months, Monero will be able to live up to its name as the best anonymous cryptocurrency in the world.

Nonetheless, we have to admit that no system is perfect. There will always exist flaws/vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. As long as the XMR community remains vibrant, the project will survive for a very long time. There are a vast number of developers working day and night to ensure Monero maintains security, reliability, and anonymity. Since the project is decentralized and open source, Monero will be able to stand the test of time. Regardless of what governments' efforts may be, the censorship-resistant nature of the Blockchain will make Monero truly unstoppable. Ultimately, governments will shut down Fiat on/off ramps for Monero. But people will still be able to get access to it "behind the scenes". Just my opinion :)

I think that these are just some lies that they are trying to spread in order to make the coin dumped. They can only trace Monero using the centralized exchangers that they have their hands on or even using the KYC procedures and dealing with governments. I don't really think that they could trace the transactions in Monero, it is so hard for them to do it using the explorer only.

There is a chance that what you are saying is true, Monero is one of the best privacy coins, there is no way Monero is simply worthless for a minor issue, so it is possible that it is only a temporary issue so that many people sell Monero and when the price drops they will buy it.