- Bitcoin trades around USD 10,000 on Sunday trading
- Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis insists that privacy isn’t a bad thing for crypto, and complete transparency shouldn’t be the case, even taking into account the needs from regulators and law enforcement
Bitcoin markets have not changed much in situation on Sunday trading, after enjoying a huge week with time spent above USD 10,000. Yesterday’s dip did threaten but recovery seems imminent with prices back above USD 10,000 (CoinDesk). Bullish sentiment is clearly still on the cards, whatever the outcome from the past two days of market action and many analysts will look to the week ahead to get a sense of what is to come for the remainder of February.
Looking at crypto markets, it is clear that there is a lot of demand and strength in that demand, and many repeatedly point to Bitcoin fundamentals — particularly its strength of security in cryptography, as well as its aspects of transparency that makes it a highly trackable cryptocurrency, while being able to maintain some form of privacy.
Privacy and transparency associated with cryptocurrency, however, have been unfairly blamed as the reasons that Bitcoin is used for criminal purposes. And mainstream headlines continue to pour on the stereotype that Bitcoin is a favorite of cyber criminals, even though it is consistently proven that less than 1% of Bitcoin transactions are of an illicit nature.
And a new report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis now says that privacy in crypto markets is not even necessarily bad.
The firm has been famous in the past for having been responsible for digging up primary sources of crypto transaction data for use of federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI, leading to arrests and criminal trials.
CSO and co-founder Jonathan Levin, however, says this doesn’t mean that Chainalysis is against privacy or decentralization of cryptocurrencies, saying, that “complete transparency is not necessarily an ideal place”. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Levin said that there was a responsibility to help regulators and businesses to monitor illegal activity relating to virtual currency, even if this can seem at odds with the basic human rights to privacy. He stated:
“There will be the invention of privacy-enhancing technology. Complete transparency is not necessarily an ideal place to be either, but ultimately there needs to be the ability for regulators and businesses with the appropriate levels of legal authority and oversight to tackle the illicit activity that abuses the systems.”
He insisted earlier that there were two opposing extremes on the issue of privacy and transparency extremes:
“The two extremes of total anonymity and complete transparency are bad. Complete anonymity opens the door to illicit activity that, by definition, cannot be investigated. That’s not a world you want to live in. On the other hand, complete transparency means no privacy at all. That’s also not a world you want to live in.”
Levin is adamant that he supports some form of crypto privacy, even if his firm still hasn’t found a way to completely trace all privacy-centric cryptocurrencies like Monero. He did say that success wasn’t impossible, however, noting:
“We may not necessarily be able to track all of the funds in privacy coins but we still perform research on what they are used for. We sometimes find ways to be able to trace some of that.”
There was no comment in the interview, however, regarding a claim by an alleged whistleblower who said that he was a rogue employee from the firm last year, who actually accused Chainalysis that the company’s forensic methods of being unable to crack simple anonymizing Bitcoin wallets like Samourai or Wasabi.
In his Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit, the ex-employee said that the firm was guilty of overstating the capabilities of its software, when in fact the tools could easily be thwarted by simple obfuscation measures like CoinJoin.
Nevertheless, Chainalysis and others continue to be sought by experts and regulators and are still a highly trusted source of analysis for worldwide crypto-based illicit activity such as money laundering and operations on darknet markets.
But as we always advise, do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
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The post Trending Bitcoin News and Market Sentiment February 16th, 2020: Privacy in Crypto Isn’t a Bad Thing at All, Complete Transparency Not a World to Live In Either appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.
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