Altcoins Talks - Cryptocurrency Forum
Learning & News => News related to Crypto => Topic started by: DrBeer on October 23, 2024, 04:02:23 PM
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Fresh news from the crypto space.
“Japanese police uncovered a fraudulent scheme with a total loss of more than 100 million yen ($663,000) and arrested the organizer after tracking transactions in Monero (XMR). This is reported by local media.
The detainee, Yuta Kobayashi, is suspected of fraud and money laundering. Authorities assume that he was the organizer of a criminal group that used stolen credit card data to buy non-existent goods on the Mercari platform, then laundered funds in Monero.
In total, law enforcers have tracked about 900 transactions in this cryptocurrency allegedly linked to the group. The total damage from this as well as other schemes of the attackers is estimated at 100 million yen.
In total, the group included 18 people not counting the organizer. As noted in the police, newcomers were recruited through offers of illegal part-time work in social networks.
The law enforcement agencies emphasized that this is the first cybercrime operation in the history of the country, which managed to track transactions in Monero.
Recall, this cryptoasset uses the Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) approach, which significantly complicates the tracking of transactions and their participants. Because of this, Monero (XMR) is categorized as a privacy coin.
This, among other things, is what prompted the banning of these cryptoassets in the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) approved in the EU in March 2024. ”
https://incrypted.com/polytsyja-japonyy-vpervye-otsledyla-tranzaktsyy-v-monero/
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUE211MN0R21C24A0000000/
Your thoughts on this ?
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The law enforcement agencies emphasized that this is the first cybercrime operation in the history of the country, which managed to track transactions in Monero.
i do not see this news as something negative for monero if anything this news puts pressure on the security of credit cards there have been 900 fraudulent transactions made by kobayashi with credit cards he stole through phishing and the management companies willingly paid for these “failed” transactions
shows how their system can be easily exploited by anyone who knows how
Recall, this cryptoasset uses the Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) approach, which significantly complicates the tracking of transactions and their participants. Because of this, Monero (XMR) is categorized as a privacy coin.
This, among other things, is what prompted the banning of these cryptoassets in the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) approved in the EU in March 2024. ”
quite ironic that out of all cryptocurrencies out there it was monero that was able to help them track this criminal mastermind when everyone was hating on crypto/monero for basically giving criminals a platform to launder money but look how it has actually helped the authorities
haters will not like this story
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Not so sure how those "untraceable monero transactions" were done.
If mixers or exchanges were involved tracing is more possible.
If you had a few cell phone wallets and drove around a few cities mixing them around I think they would have been far harder to trace.
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I'm not sure how reliable those news that they were able to track it down when criminals uses XMR. It's one of the best if not the best privacy coins for now and maybe have tried to break or trace it and so far no one has come forward till this day.
For me thinking about it, possible that they have found the criminals by their own fault. Maybe this missed some important things or shall we say, a misstep on their part that's why they were able to be traced back by the Japanese authorities and not merely cracking the code of Monero.
It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
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It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
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The law enforcement agencies emphasized that this is the first cybercrime operation in the history of the country, which managed to track transactions in Monero.
i do not see this news as something negative for monero if anything this news puts pressure on the security of credit cards there have been 900 fraudulent transactions made by kobayashi with credit cards he stole through phishing and the management companies willingly paid for these “failed” transactions
shows how their system can be easily exploited by anyone who knows how
Recall, this cryptoasset uses the Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) approach, which significantly complicates the tracking of transactions and their participants. Because of this, Monero (XMR) is categorized as a privacy coin.
This, among other things, is what prompted the banning of these cryptoassets in the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) approved in the EU in March 2024. ”
quite ironic that out of all cryptocurrencies out there it was monero that was able to help them track this criminal mastermind when everyone was hating on crypto/monero for basically giving criminals a platform to launder money but look how it has actually helped the authorities
haters will not like this story
If a private key or a seed phrase is stolen through phishing, a person will lose their assets just the same. It's just that the audience of cardholders is more careless than participants of the crypto world, and cardholders outnumber crypto wallet holders by orders of magnitude. But cryptocurrencies are being stolen. And here it is necessary to be honest - if when stealing cards the money can be returned, then stolen cryptocurrencies - disappear forever ...
And the last phrase, if I understood it correctly, is not an advantage or disadvantage of Monero, just a criminal used it. It's like saying - we have identified the criminal who owns a Macbook laptop, it was Macbook and iOS that helped us track down the criminal, so it's better than Windows or Linux ! :)
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Your thoughts on this ?
I can't read Japanese language, but this part of news you shared seems to be real reason how authority track the criminal. It should be much easier rather than breaking Monero's privacy feature or cryptography.
Authorities assume that he was the organizer of a criminal group that used stolen credit card data to buy non-existent goods on the Mercari platform, then laundered funds in Monero.
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Tracking 100 million yen ($663,000) would be easier than tracking a few thousand dollars since it would require a platform to sell all that money and it could easily raise suspicions about it especially if it was in a country where $663,000 is a large amount. As for how to track it, a small mistake could lead governments to you especially since you cannot spend that money using Monero alone.
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I'm not sure how reliable those news that they were able to track it down when criminals uses XMR. It's one of the best if not the best privacy coins for now and maybe have tried to break or trace it and so far no one has come forward till this day.
For me thinking about it, possible that they have found the criminals by their own fault. Maybe this missed some important things or shall we say, a misstep on their part that's why they were able to be traced back by the Japanese authorities and not merely cracking the code of Monero.
It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
That is the key question - is this really very high quality and sophisticated japanese police work, or is it a “0-day” vulnerability found in the Monero protocol ? If the former - respect and honor to the Japanese police, if the latter option - the Monero ecosystem is in great danger...
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Probably there is someting else about this story, or it is exaggerated in a way. I don't believe that Japanece police managed to
track transactions in Monero without having an insider source of information among criminals. If it is true and they did track transactions in Monero it is a serious reputation damage and bad news for all Monero holders.
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That is the key question - is this really very high quality and sophisticated japanese police work, or is it a “0-day” vulnerability found in the Monero protocol ? If the former - respect and honor to the Japanese police, if the latter option - the Monero ecosystem is in great danger...
Yeah, things are probably more complicated than what we're reading from the Japanese announcement. Monero has always been the most secure privacy coin protocol out there, to the point where many CEXs have been forced to delist XMR to avoid pressure from anti-money laundering agencies. I don't understand how the Japanese police could track the details of transactions on Monero.
The Monero community should have a clearer explanation of this issue so that users and investors can continue to stay with Monero. Personally, I guess the criminals who were caught voluntarily confessed to their crimes and handed over their transaction history to the police.
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It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
Exactly, and how many times that we heard that before? even in Bitcoin? This scammers made just one mistake of even depositing those that they though are untraceable to a CEX and obviously, the authorities track it and work with that CEX to identify the person behind.
So it's not that Monero as the top privacy coins has been broken by the Japanese, because if it did, for sure it will be a big news today. But so far none from Monero has come forward to admit it.
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It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
Exactly, and how many times that we heard that before? even in Bitcoin? This scammers made just one mistake of even depositing those that they though are untraceable to a CEX and obviously, the authorities track it and work with that CEX to identify the person behind.
So it's not that Monero as the top privacy coins has been broken by the Japanese, because if it did, for sure it will be a big news today. But so far none from Monero has come forward to admit it.
If transactions are not traceable, then it turns out the transfer to the СEX of the exchange does not carry any threat of disclosure of links between the wallet of the criminal and his account on the exchange !
In addition, I do not think that the criminal who is hiding, will identify himself with his real data on the exchange ...
Therefore, I am of the opinion that there are some “nuances” in the work of the Monero protocol, which allow you to still link transactions and analyze them
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I'm not sure how reliable those news that they were able to track it down when criminals uses XMR. It's one of the best if not the best privacy coins for now and maybe have tried to break or trace it and so far no one has come forward till this day.
For me thinking about it, possible that they have found the criminals by their own fault. Maybe this missed some important things or shall we say, a misstep on their part that's why they were able to be traced back by the Japanese authorities and not merely cracking the code of Monero.
It's bad practice by the criminals that leads authorities to team.
It is very likely they used a honeypot mixer. The mixer then informed the government and they were caught.
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quite ironic that out of all cryptocurrencies out there it was monero that was able to help them track this criminal mastermind when everyone was hating on crypto/monero for basically giving criminals a platform to launder money but look how it has actually helped the authorities
haters will not like this story
It's a good point of view I mean they have restricted Monero because of its privacy and untraceable transactions but if Japan has done it then other countries can also do it but they might not be making this public (who knows if they are doing it) well so does it mean XMR will not be restricted anymore.
I don't use Monero for privacy but they did not share the whole method of tracking them as well maybe they tracked the transactions done by these new recruits on the site and they tracked these 18 members and they led to the main player of the scam and got caught and they changed the story that they tracked the transactions of XMR to track the scammers.
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quite ironic that out of all cryptocurrencies out there it was monero that was able to help them track this criminal mastermind when everyone was hating on crypto/monero for basically giving criminals a platform to launder money but look how it has actually helped the authorities
haters will not like this story
It's a good point of view I mean they have restricted Monero because of its privacy and untraceable transactions but if Japan has done it then other countries can also do it but they might not be making this public (who knows if they are doing it) well so does it mean XMR will not be restricted anymore.
I don't use Monero for privacy but they did not share the whole method of tracking them as well maybe they tracked the transactions done by these new recruits on the site and they tracked these 18 members and they led to the main player of the scam and got caught and they changed the story that they tracked the transactions of XMR to track the scammers.
There is speculation that the result of this de-anonymization was the result of a set of events:
- purposeful actions of certain structures
- mistakes of the perpetrator himself, who was not attentive enough to the issue of moving/exchanging crypto funds
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--snip--
It is very likely they used a honeypot mixer. The mixer then informed the government and they were caught.
What exactly do you mean by mixer? Monero mixer? If so, AFAIK all of them are scam where they simply steal your Monero.
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Monero is a good privacy coin but in the end nothing is untraceable, no matter how careful and cautious the criminal is he will be discovered and tracked down for any small mistake he makes.
The criminal must have made a mistake at some point that led to him being tracked and exposed, and he most likely used one of the central services otherwise how could they have uncovered his identity? Or maybe someone ratted on him when he spent this large sum in a suspicious or scrutinized manner.
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Monero is a good privacy coin but in the end nothing is untraceable, no matter how careful and cautious the criminal is he will be discovered and tracked down for any small mistake he makes.
The criminal must have made a mistake at some point that led to him being tracked and exposed, and he most likely used one of the central services otherwise how could they have uncovered his identity? Or maybe someone ratted on him when he spent this large sum in a suspicious or scrutinized manner.
This is not the first time Monero has been caught in the information field, about the disclosure and de-anonymization of transactions on its protocol : Representatives of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) managed to trace Monero transactions related to the hacking of the Vastaamo medical network, local media reported .
In October 2022, a hacker attacked the psychotherapy service provider and gained access to the accounts of 33,000 customers. The attacker demanded a 40 BTC ($1.7 million) ransom from the company, and when he didn't get it, he moved on to blackmailing people listed in the user base.
https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/vastaamo-jutussa-iso-paljastus-krp-jaljitti-jaljittamattomana-pidettya-kryptovaluuttaa/8864046#gs.49h3f1
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In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
I agree with your statements they can't catach the scammer because they backtracked the Monero transaction because if Monero transaction is also performed by mixers then tracking it is not a childs play even for the authorities. They must have found any other proofs about the case.
Monero still holds it's feature of providing anonymity, only the work flow of these scammers were to week that they got caught which is a good thing for the community because now they won't scam anyone and it will increase adoption. These scammers make mistake at one point and that lead the police to them directly no wonder media finds it pleasing to target XMR and other privacy tools all the times.
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In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
I agree with your statements they can't catach the scammer because they backtracked the Monero transaction because if Monero transaction is also performed by mixers then tracking it is not a childs play even for the authorities. They must have found any other proofs about the case.
Monero still holds it's feature of providing anonymity, only the work flow of these scammers were to week that they got caught which is a good thing for the community because now they won't scam anyone and it will increase adoption. These scammers make mistake at one point and that lead the police to them directly no wonder media finds it pleasing to target XMR and other privacy tools all the times.
And you deny the possibility of a 0-day vulnerability in the protocol ? Frankly, I am 99% sure that this disclosure is a complex of measures and mistakes of the criminal himself, but.... It is impossible not to admit that there may be problems in Monero's protocol that are not yet known to the general public. And reassuring ourselves that everything is “all nice and safe” will just exacerbate the problem....
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I don't even know on what percentage are some people making use of Monero for getting their privacy privileges in making transactions, some will prefer the use of this to that of mixers, or some will say that it is more better for them to run bitcoin full node transaction, if people are still using monero, that indicates it serves it purpose the more and if they don't, it has failed to deliver any longer.
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In my own estimate, that's more likely like that. Usually, experienced authorities or those in police work specializing on online criminals are just waiting for some red flags, clues, missteps done by people whom they are following and as humans as we are and no matter how super careful we could we as time goes on there will always be like that. And then details will emerge after these criminals are captured. I am not so sure on Monero, actually, as it remains to be one of the top privacy coins in the market and so far associated as a big tool with skipping the government and those in the law.
I agree with your statements they can't catach the scammer because they backtracked the Monero transaction because if Monero transaction is also performed by mixers then tracking it is not a childs play even for the authorities. They must have found any other proofs about the case.
Monero still holds it's feature of providing anonymity, only the work flow of these scammers were to week that they got caught which is a good thing for the community because now they won't scam anyone and it will increase adoption. These scammers make mistake at one point and that lead the police to them directly no wonder media finds it pleasing to target XMR and other privacy tools all the times.
And you deny the possibility of a 0-day vulnerability in the protocol ? Frankly, I am 99% sure that this disclosure is a complex of measures and mistakes of the criminal himself, but.... It is impossible not to admit that there may be problems in Monero's protocol that are not yet known to the general public. And reassuring ourselves that everything is “all nice and safe” will just exacerbate the problem....
I would have to agree that at some point, maybe there are vulnerabilities in Monero that is not known to the public. And if that is the case, they could have been working to fix it from behind and not make a fuzz out of it so not they will still have the "hype" with them as the top Privacy coins for now.
Maybe in the future blockchain analysis companies will come up on a algo on how to break them. But for now, crypto enthusiast can only assumed that it's still reliable to used them for privacy purposes.
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I would have to agree that at some point, maybe there are vulnerabilities in Monero that is not known to the public. And if that is the case, they could have been working to fix it from behind and not make a fuzz out of it so not they will still have the "hype" with them as the top Privacy coins for now.
Maybe in the future blockchain analysis companies will come up on a algo on how to break them. But for now, crypto enthusiast can only assumed that it's still reliable to used them for privacy purposes.
That's the main problem - we don't know what the full “de-anonymization” process looked like. We have a general picture, but no details - it's a protocol problem, some “social engineering”, other technical solutions not directly related to protocol problems..... Without this we can't understand where and what to fix.
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Thank you for sharing the news. It's interesting to see how law enforcement is adapting to track transactions in privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Monero. This case highlights the challenges and risks associated with the anonymity these coins provide. It also raises questions about the balance between privacy and regulation in the crypto space. The implications for future regulations, especially following the EU's AMLR, will be worth monitoring as authorities continue to address crypto-related crimes.
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And you deny the possibility of a 0-day vulnerability in the protocol ? Frankly, I am 99% sure that this disclosure is a complex of measures and mistakes of the criminal himself, but.... It is impossible not to admit that there may be problems in Monero's protocol that are not yet known to the general public. And reassuring ourselves that everything is “all nice and safe” will just exacerbate the problem....
What does 0-day vulnerability mean here? I know Monero is hard to track but using anonymous tools is not enough to keep us anonymous we need to follow the rules like the use of a good web browser the proxies and other requirements of the job.
They found their employees on internet so they somehow contacted them to explain them how this work and how they will make money without following the safety guidelines they can't be saved even if they use Monero.
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It is very likely they used a honeypot mixer. The mixer then informed the government and they were caught.
There is no point in using a mixer for monero!
They got tracked by using a platform to buy stuff with fake credit cards, they got investigated for those, and only then did the Japanese police manage to find the trace of Monero, so rather than decyphering the monero trace they just found the trace from fiat to monero.
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It is very likely they used a honeypot mixer. The mixer then informed the government and they were caught.
There is no point in using a mixer for monero!
They got tracked by using a platform to buy stuff with fake credit cards, they got investigated for those, and only then did the Japanese police manage to find the trace of Monero, so rather than decyphering the monero trace they just found the trace from fiat to monero.
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Well, if that's the case, then we don't have to worry about the Monero, just recognize the indiscretion of the perpetrator. Is there somewhere more information about this story and the investigation itself? Honestly, I haven't found it, or I haven't looked hard enough.
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There is speculation that the result of this de-anonymization was the result of a set of events:
- purposeful actions of certain structures
- mistakes of the perpetrator himself, who was not attentive enough to the issue of moving/exchanging crypto funds
I don't know why it looks like I am supporting him, hahaha as I was going to say he should be more attentive haha. Monero is a good privacy tool (calling it tool won't be wrong) only the perpetrator did something wrong that he got caught although Japan do have some advance technologies and I wonder if they really caught him by tracking XMR tx.
Although that's not possible but if you say so then that's relief too haha even though I don't use XMR. So, its proved that Monero is safe.
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Well, if that's the case, then we don't have to worry about the Monero, just recognize the indiscretion of the perpetrator. Is there somewhere more information about this story and the investigation itself?
It's in the article itself, the chain of events didn't start with monero, it started with credit card fraud then they had a suspect and only by the time they had him identified in custody and with access to his dealings did they get information about his cryptocurrency:
Kobayashi emerged as a suspect from communication apps with the perpetrators, and after analyzing the flow of virtual currency, it was determined that there was a strong possibility that he was involved in the series of crimes.
Once they get access to your computer and to your wallet monero obfuscation is useless.
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Your thoughts on this ?
I still believe that Monero is safe and the authorities have used some type of social engineering to track those transactions. In simple words even a privacy coin like Monero won't be able to hide someone's crimes and the ones who do crime will always reach their destination and that's behind the bars.
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Your thoughts on this ?
I still believe that Monero is safe and the authorities have used some type of social engineering to track those transactions. In simple words even a privacy coin like Monero won't be able to hide someone's crimes and the ones who do crime will always reach their destination and that's behind the bars.
Let's hope Monero remains a safe system. Though it always goes against the idea of comprehensive justice as people tend to use good technology for bad things :(.
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Let's hope Monero remains a safe system. Though it always goes against the idea of comprehensive justice as people tend to use good technology for bad things :(.
Yes, I believe it will remain safe no matter whatever people say about it, and that's the reason why most centralized exchanges delisted it due to its high privacy feature. However, governments don't support it because it can be used for bad things but fiat can also be used for bad things and money laundering is mostly done in fiat then in crypto.
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Let's hope Monero remains a safe system. Though it always goes against the idea of comprehensive justice as people tend to use good technology for bad things :(.
Yes, I believe it will remain safe no matter whatever people say about it, and that's the reason why most centralized exchanges delisted it due to its high privacy feature. However, governments don't support it because it can be used for bad things but fiat can also be used for bad things and money laundering is mostly done in fiat then in crypto.
Many times money transporting is done via crypto.
IE I live in Iceland you live in New Zealand.
I move wealth via crypto . Once I move it country to country with ease I may need to convert to cash to launder it.
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You cannot track Monero transactions from the blockchain. It would be very impractical and takes too much time even for the NSA. So if this activity was detected, then it must have been either from the issuers of stolen credit cards or from the websites from which Monero was bought or sold.
But it's highly unlikely, almost impossible that they actually breached Monero transaction confidentiality.
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You cannot track Monero transactions from the blockchain. It would be very impractical and takes too much time even for the NSA. So if this activity was detected, then it must have been either from the issuers of stolen credit cards or from the websites from which Monero was bought or sold.
But it's highly unlikely, almost impossible that they actually breached Monero transaction confidentiality.
What you are talking about is the key problem, the current situation with the conditionally anonymous crypto world. Let me put it this way: today, it is impossible to live in the modern world, fully providing for one's needs only with cryptocurrency, without crossing over into the world of fiat money.
Even having, let's consider, a qualitatively anonymous blockchain like Monero, a person is forced to perform actions that will de-anonymize him, as an example - withdrawal of funds from the exchange to card accounts....
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Monero will be the oldschool boy forever :D But ofc there are other alternatives that has proven their privacy.