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.

Mastercard announced this Wednesday, August 9, a virtual test environment, which will allow central banks to evaluate the use cases of central bank cryptocurrencies (CBDC). The platform, Mastercard notes, enables the simulation of CBDC issuance, distribution and exchange between banks, financial service providers and consumers.

In addition to inviting central banks to test the platform, Mastercard notes that it can be useful for commercial banks and financial and technology consultants. It invites these instances "to evaluate CBDC technology designs, validate use cases, and evaluate interoperability with the payment mechanisms that are available today to consumers and organizations."

Central banks have accelerated their exploration of digital currencies with various goals, from driving digital inclusion to modernizing the payments ecosystem. […] This new platform supports central banks in making decisions, now and in the future, on the way forward for local and regional economies.

CBDCs are designed, Mastercard notes, to be equivalent in value to national currencies, and are subject to the same guarantees to back them up. Among the various operating models for CBDC, the most widely used approach is issuance and distribution through commercial banks.

Among the characteristics of the announced platform, the main one is to simulate the issuance of CBDC, its distribution and exchange with banks and consumers. It also defines how CBDC can interact with existing payment networks and infrastructures, Mastercard says.

On the other hand, the proposed platform allows to show how a consumer can use a CBDC to pay for goods and services wherever Mastercard is accepted. The market viability of various designs and use cases of a CBDC can be evaluated with this platform.

80% of central banks that participated in a survey conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, are involved in some type of work with CBDC. 40% of central banks have gone from the conceptual research stage to experimenting with designs, according to the query.

CBDCs could accelerate a transformation of the global financial system. That possibility arose from Facebook's proposal for Libra, a cryptocurrency that would be independent of any national jurisdiction and to which the almost 3 billion users who access Facebook on a monthly basis would have access. In this Mastercard proposal, the use of CBDC in different jurisdictions is also considered

Hola de nuevo! el mercado en latinoamerica cada dia crece y esto conlleva a que compañia den una mirada mas aqui , una de las compañia que se gano el corazon de muchos en uphold la compañia perfecta para todos los latino no importa que tu pais este sancionado como venezuela o nicaragua , pero bueno la pregunta del millon aqui es posible crear una tarjeta de debito y fondearla con btc? se que en uphold se podia pero ese metodo murio en 2017 ahora esta esta ala espera de un permiso y se creo una whitelist que permitira tener tarjeta virtual y fisica , peroo existe algun otro medio se que hay tarjeta de btc fisicas pero solo son para pagar a otra cartera de blockchain.

A month after Russia's President Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead to the Digital Financial Assets (DFA) law, a potential reform is now looming that would legalize Bitcoin mining, but ban the incentives miners receive for your activity.

The Ministry of Finance proposed a set of amendments to the law that would prohibit all cryptocurrency transactions, limiting their use to three areas: inheritance, bankruptcy-related operations, and court executions.

Local media pointed out that the intention of the reform is to legalize Bitcoin mining, however, miners could not receive the remuneration as they would risk being fined up to 100,000 rubles ($ 1,300) and be sentenced to seven years in prison. . In the case of legal persons, the fine would amount to 1 million rubles ($ 13,000).

Dmitry Sakharov, CEO of the Moscow Digital School, commented that the situation is complex and it is unclear how miners would receive the incentives. "Experts may try to come up with some interesting legal structures, but all of them will carry significant risks of applying administrative (fines) and criminal (imprisonment) liability."

The intention to modify the recently approved law is contradictory since cryptocurrency mining is sustained precisely by the incentives that miners receive as a return on their investment. If the direct payment of incentives is prohibited, an uncertainty is created since it is unknown what would be the mechanism to compensate for the work carried out to maintain the network.


Quoted by digital means, lawyer Anton Babenko specified that it would be "difficult to say how the rules that allow the use of mining equipment in Russia prohibit receiving payment in digital currency."

In this regard, it is possible to speculate a scenario in which the miners continue to develop their work (those who accept), but the bitcoins of the rewards go to wallets controlled by the government. In theory, the authorities would receive the funds, deduct taxes, distribute the rewards and encourage activity in the country.

The problem could arise if transparency guarantees are not presented in the allocation of resources, which would generate corruption. Furthermore, the government would not be obliged to transfer the bitcoins either as it could decide to send fiat money instead of the cryptocurrencies.

Interestingly, Jakhon Khabilov, head of the Sigmapool mining consortium, told digital media that in Russia only the smallest mining farms accept payment in cryptocurrencies. The largest receive payment in fiat currency through bank transfers.

It should be mentioned that, according to the record kept by the University of Cambridge, Russia is the third country in the world with the highest processing power in the Bitcoin network with almost 7% hash rate. They are followed by the Russian Federation: China with 65% and the United States with 7.2%.

The regulations that Russia applies to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are generating more confusion about what is the legislative tone with which they are assumed. The country recognizes Bitcoin legally, but maintains prohibitions to use it as a payment method.

The government classifies it as an investment mechanism that is only accessible to qualified operators, in accordance with the provisions issued by the central bank.

Other regulations that could be passed include that mining farms must report their operations to the national government. Processing centers must disclose their computing capacity, how the data is stored, what their services are, and what the operating cost is.

Bitcoin began to be accepted as a means of payment in the Just Eat restaurant delivery network in France. Users of more than 15,000 Just Eat food delivery restaurants now have bitcoin as a new payment option in the franchise's mobile application, in addition to credit cards, PayPal, cash, among others.

On the website of Just Eat France, a subsidiary of the British-Dutch consortium JustEat Takeaway, the steps to follow when choosing to pay with bitcoin are specified. As a prerequisite, the user requires access to a bitcoin wallet on their mobile, Just Eat says in the instructions. "To make a payment in Bitcoin, you need to create a cryptocurrency digital wallet by downloading special software or an application."

In many countries, everyday applications use btc and eth as a means of payment, an example is in Central America that they are creating startups that are all in one, that is, combining services such as uber, uber eat, exchange and others and accepts payments in btc and eth

With the prolongation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the South Korean government once again discussed the blockchain-based online electoral system, after in 2018 pilot projects were administered from different ministries within the Asian country for that purpose.


"By applying blockchain technology within the process of authenticating voters and storing and verifying voting results, transparency and security are significantly strengthened compared to existing online voting," said a politician about these 2018 trials of the Korean government. And he added that "at that time it had been done to verify whether the blockchain-based online electoral system can function properly. It was not intended to be used for external or generalized elections."


When the pilot program ended, the song was on hold and did not appear again until the week. The authorities are concerned that the general elections held on April 15 of this year a few months ago and will surely have a minimum turnout in years. It is here where blockchain emerges as a safe and effective alternative for various specialists.


On the other hand, the K-vote, a web electoral system developed by the Korean national committee independently, has been actively used in private sector elections since 2013. K-Vote is especially used in political party elections, recommendations for candidates for president of the National University and elections of representatives of apartment tenants.


Regarding the probability of implementing this technique in parliamentary and presidential elections, another government official expressed that "The K-Vote, which is widely used in the private sector, is difficult to use publicly in elections at this time because the people are still concerned about the reliability of the web voting system. Once a social consensus has been established, a legal basis must be prepared. "


For their part, the United States, Russia, Australia, Spain, Estonia, Denmark and Ukraine are already preparing to introduce or implement electronic voting using blockchain.

All of this is taking shape every time due to covid19 and social distancing in countries like the United States at that time there was only an idea of ​​vote-by-mail politicians but it was not accepted and neither was specifically talked about blockchain and what to do. Do you think about this new news, would you like to see a vote with the blockchain technology implemented in your country?

For my part, I would love to see blockchain implemented in E-vote, we would be saying that blockchain in addition to having a force in the economy would have a force in politics and freedom and would be talking about the fraudulent votes ending, something. that today is very common in several countries

pues desde conosco el btc desde que tenia el precio de 14 usd aprox en 2012 o 2013 y la verdad fue un boom ya que recuerdo estar en una faucet que te daba btc por ver publicidad y yo me puse mal por que por una semana solo gane centavos y fue el peor error de mi vida por que en menos de unos meses inicio como un cohete para arriba de repente esos centavos fueron 50 usd luego 250 y fue subiendo y bueno no alargare mas la historia vi que en latam la comunidad esta cada vez mas fuerte y tengo una idea que en paises como usa esta agarrando mucha fuerza y es minar pero con energia solar ,algun hispanohablante aqui que mine con paneles solares o que conosca a alguien que mine con paneles solares es rentable en latam ? y bueno que tal les fue desde que iniciaron ?  y que equipos recomiendan? tengo pensado en crear una mineria de btc solar en una zona rural ya que aqui en la ciudad obvio que sale caro comprar y es menos efectivo y quiero saber sus experiencia en esto