Sanctions aimed at decentralized crypto mixer Tornado Cash weren’t able to completely cut off its usage, though it has hamstrung the service, a blockchain analytics firm has shared. On Aug. 8, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the crypto mixer for its role in the laundering of crime proceeds. In a report published on Jan. 9, Chainalysis said the sanctions did have some effect, causing total inflows to the mixer to drop by 68% in the 30 days after the sanctions came into force. 1/ The first section preview of our 2023 Crypto Crime Report is …

Messaging app Telegram has rolled out a new update enabling users to create accounts using blockchain-based anonymous numbers, as opposed to cell phone numbers. Telegram already hides people’s private phone numbers from non-added users on the app, however, users will now be able to hide numbers from everyone, which is likely to please people who value privacy-focused features. The messaging platform has become a popular app for crypto enthusiasts. The move is part of a 9.2 update launched on Dec. 6, which also enables users to auto-delete timers on messages in new chats. Ultimate Privacy: No-SIM Signup, Auto-Delete All Chats, …

Credit reporting company Equifax, known for suffering from one of the largest customer data breaches to date, has partnered with blockchain company Oasis Labs to build a Know Your Customer (KYC) solution. Equifax and Oasis said on Oct. 26 that the latter would be building a decentralized identity management and KYC solution for the industry on Oasis’ platform which will leverage Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from Equifax to help with checks and user identification. The announcement made no mention of the exact technology which will underpin this offering and Cointelegraph’s request for comment was not immediately responded to by either …

Human rights investigators appointed by the United Nations (UN) have confirmed war crimes have been committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. A report developed by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was created in March 2022 to provide a framework for UN human rights investigators to report war crimes in the region. Erik Møse, chair for the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, stated in the UN’s article that “investigators visited 27 towns and settlements and interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses.” Møse also noted that “sites of destruction, graves, places of detention and torture, as …

Law enforcement in Australia is working to boost cryptocurrency expertise and trace crypto transactions by setting up a dedicated police group. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a new cryptocurrency unit to focus on monitoring crypto-related transactions, The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday. Stefan Jerga, the national manager of the AFP’s criminal asset confiscation command, said that the use of crypto in criminal activity had significantly increased since the AFP made its first crypto seizure in early 2018. In response to this, AFP decided to set up a dedicated crypto team in August, Jerga noted. The increased focus …

What happens with unreported cryptocurrency? Not reporting Bitcoin despite the obligation to do so may have severe consequences for individuals’ lives and finances. The fine for making an incorrect declaration can be substantial and can even be considered a felony in certain circumstances. Individuals may wonder whether centralized cryptocurrency exchanges actively report to the IRS. Centralized exchanges do issue tax forms to the IRS. Likewise, the IRS has issued so-called John Doe Summons to exchanges, including Coinbase, to request people’s information and catch those who try to cheat on their tax obligations. But, such summonses are not the only law …

Should I share my Bitcoin address publicly? It is not a problem to share public keys, but make sure the private key cannot be found by third parties. Transactions can be sent to the public key, which is completely secure. It is safe to share your Bitcoin address publicly. This way, it is possible to safely complete donations or payments. No cryptocurrencies can be stolen through a public address. The only way by which stealing crypto is possible is if someone has managed to get hold of the private keys. Bitcoin wallets always make a difference between public keys and …

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 and people who want privacy and what's next for privacy in Web3. According to Ghappour, there are contradictory concepts in the Web3 space. This is the promise of returning data ownership to the people …

As on-chain activities slow down during the crypto winter, usage of cryptocurrency mixers has doubled in 2022, with addresses classified as “illicit” being the top contributor. Cryptocurrency mixers, also called “tumblers,” provide anonymity to transactions, making the sender or receiver of the transaction completely unidentified. While this has a valid use case for everyday users, hackers have used it to hide from authorities. In a report by analytics firm Chainalysis, data shows that the 30-day moving average of the total daily value received by crypto mixers reached a new all-time high of $51.8 million in April 2022. The amount is …

Cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has fully open-sourced its user interface (UI) code — a move its developers say fulfills their mandate of complete decentralization and transparency. Tornado Cash Classic UI became fully open-sourced on Thursday, the protocol’s anonymous developers announced in a Medium blog post. Although the protocol’s UI has been decentralized since 2020, its open sourcing means anyone can analyze Tornado Cash’s UI pools and make pull requests to improve the project. In the software development world, a pull request is when a developer is ready to merge new code changes with the project's main repository. Technically, Tornado Cash’s …

Crypto has inherited many values that were popularized in the early days of the internet. Many participants in the crypto space have been anonymous since the beginning of Bitcoin (BTC), since using this digital money offers a certain degree of anonymity so long as nobody knows the public address of the user. The true identity of its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, remains unknown to this day. The most recent wave of innovation spearheaded by decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) projects have anonymous teams that maintain their general right to remain unknown. The founder of DeFi analytics dashboard Defi Llama, …

The European Central Bank (ECB) continues pushing its central bank digital currency (CBDC) project despite Europeans apparently not feeling too positive about a digital euro. The ECB released another working paper on the digital euro, providing an extensive technical analysis of a potential European CBDC and its position in the existing financial system. Issued on May 13, the working paper aims to study issues like financial intermediation, payment choices and privacy in the digital economy, providing a large number of related algebra-based conclusions. The study suggests that a “CBDC with anonymity” is preferable to traditional digital payments like bank deposits …