Earlier this week, an article appeared in a Finnish publication MTV News Finland’s National Investigation Agency (KRP) has claimed success in tracking transactions made using privacy-protecting cryptocurrencies. monero.
However, a former member of the MAGIC Monero Fund Committee said it was highly unlikely that Monero itself had been compromised. decryption. Csilla Brimer said it was likely that investigators were able to trace some of the transactions not because Monero itself was compromised, but because of poor operational security on the part of users.
“If you continue to switch between Bitcoin and Monero without paying attention to operational security, some information may be leaked,” she said. Decrypt. “Regulators could use this mistake to claim they can go after Monero.”
“Monero is very robust in protecting transaction details, but it cannot prevent mistakes in security habits,” added Brimer, a blockchain consultant and Open Economy Initiative co-founder.
KRP has been investigating transactions made through addresses linked to the 2018 data breach and subsequent extortion of Finnish psychotherapy provider Vastaamo. In 2020, hackers twice stole the company’s data and then threatened to release patients’ personal information unless the company paid up. Investigators sent 0.1 BTC to the address provided and have since been analyzing how the wallet moved the funds through Bitcoin and Monero.
This is why KRP claims to have figured out a way to track XMR transactions. Even if the organization doesn’t want to be specific about how it performed.
Marko Leposen, head of the investigation, said all sections of the additional investigation report, in which (NBI) disclosed its methods, were encrypted. MTV News In the translated version of the article, the agency added that it did not want to disclose anything about its Monero traffic analysis.
Brimmer, who was elected to the MAGIC Monero Fund in 2022, seemed unconcerned by the claims of Finnish officials. Despite being banned from several exchanges, XMR is by far the largest privacy coin with a market capitalization of $2.8 billion. As of Friday morning, the coin was trading at $158.22 per coin, up 1% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Nonetheless, it is often one of the major projects that draws the heat over money laundering claims.
Bittrex, BitBay and Huobi have all delisted Monero to appease regulators who say they are trying to reduce money laundering. And in 2021, US-based Kraken delisted Monero to enable its UK customers to comply with UK AML regulations. Now, Monero is one of several privacy coins at risk of being delisted from Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.
Earlier this year, Binance said in a blog post that Monero, Zcash and other privacy coins are “exhibiting significantly higher volatility and risk compared to other listed tokens” and are “at risk of no longer meeting our listing criteria.” .
Edited by Stephen Graves.
