Monero (XMR) completed a hard fork that improved its security and privacy features on August 13. Congratulations on a successful network upgrade! đ #Monero is now more private and efficient with ringsize 16, Bulletproofs+, and view tags! Make sure your node/wallet is updated to continue using Monero. Privacy and fungibility matter, and itâs exciting to…
USDC stablecoin issuer Circle released a statement to clarify its stance after freezing all ETH addresses affected by the U.S. Treasury Departmentâs sanction against Tornado Cash. In compliance with regulatory requirements following the ban, Circle had to activate a âblacklist functionâ to freeze the blacklisted accounts. By implication, all USDC funds held in the wallets cannot be…
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that the administration would continue to âaggressively pursueâ crypto mixers suspected of laundering illicit funds. Weâll continue to aggressively pursue actions against currency mixers laundering virtual currency for criminals. Today, @USTreasury sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder money for a U.S.-sanctioned DPRK…
Shapeshift CEO and founder Erik Voorhees recommended the MakerDAO community take precautionary measures after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash. Specifically, Voorhees advised MakerDAO users to remove their USDC collateral and convert the funds into another stablecoin. But he stopped short of advocating a more censorship-resistant choice. Dear @MakerDAO $DAI community⌠you should start unwinding…
Circleâs USDC has âblacklistedâ all Ethereum addresses owned by Tornado Cash listed in the US Treasury Departmentâs sanction against the protocol. A Twitter bot named USDC Blacklist, which scrapes the blockchain for USDC blocklists, highlighted the issue as it tweeted multiple times through Monday after the sanction was issued. The USDC âBlacklist Policyâ states that…
Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin suggests the idea of private NFTs whereby the owner would not be known through blockchain data. The concept was added to an Ethereum Research post focused on adding an âERC721 Extension for zk-SNARKs.â Idea: stealth addresses for ERC721s. A low-tech approach to add a significant amount of privacy to the NFT…
A senior Chinese central bank official, Mu Changchun, said the country will respect digital yuan usersâ privacy and protect their personal information, Reuters reported on July 25. According to Changchun, the digital yuan has a limited anonymity feature that allows for reasonable anonymous transactions. He said using the digital yuan âprevents and combats illegal activities…
Polygonâs Head of Enterprise, Antoni Martin, gave the keynote speech at the 2022 EY Global Blockchain Summit and introduced Polygon Nightfall, the companyâs new zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) solution that offers privacy for companies that want to use Ethereum blockchain. According to Martinâs speech, Polygon Nightfall produces eight times faster results than Ethereum base layers, transfers…
Crypto mixer usage reached an all-time high in 2022 with a significant contribution from sanctioned entities and cybercriminals with known state affiliations, according to Chainalysisâ recent report. The numbers show that the value received by mixers reached its all-time high of $51.8 million on April 19, 2022. 30-day moving average of daily value received by…
Crypto entrepreneurs think the need for crypto-native messaging platforms is increasing daily as the number of crypto users increases. Crypto is increasingly being used for things other than trading with an exchange. As DAOs and NFTs spread, the need to communicate through a blockchain-based, wallet-connected platform also increases. Prominent entrepreneur Elad Gil commented on the…