Monero (XMR) has shown a surprising resilience against the United States Federal Reserve’s hawkish policies that pushed the prices of most of its crypto rivals — including the top dog Bitcoin (BTC) — lower last week. XMR price closed the previous week 2.37% higher at $217, data from Binance shows. In comparison, BTC, which typically influences the broader crypto market, finished the week down 11.55%. The second-largest crypto, Ether (ETH), also plunged 11% in the same period. While the crypto market wiped off $163.25 billion from its valuation last week, down nearly 9%, Monero’s market cap increased by $87.7 million, …

Next to the fears of government overreach that the European Union’s ambitious digital euro project stirred, the main concern of the public is the prospective currency’s privacy framework. It appears that this worry might not be overblown after all, as the European Central Bank’s (ECB) latest presentation hints that user anonymity is not a desirable design option. On Tuesday, crypto venture adviser and European digital asset regulation whistleblower Patrick Hansen drew public attention to the ECB’s presentation titled “Digital Euro Privacy options.” The document is relatively short and contains nine slides that lay out the possible options for user privacy …

While the West is growing increasingly concerned over Russia’s potential use of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions, some Russians are using their Bitcoin (BTC) to help Ukrainian people. Pavel Muntyan, a renowned Russian animation producer and creator of the animated web series “Mr. Freeman,” has called on anti-war Russians to support Ukrainian citizens amid Russia’s ongoing military attack on the country. Muntyan took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the opening of a cryptocurrency donation address for Russians who want to support Ukrainian people anonymously as Russia has banned its citizens from helping people in Ukraine. On Feb. 27, Russia’s General …

From the very beginning, individuals making use of pseudonymous identities to protect their privacy has been an integral part of the crypto sector, however, with the market having matured a lot since the early days, the question of these practices still being morally sound has once again come to the forefront, especially in relation to projects that have achieved a certain amount of mainstream clout. In this regard, American media and entertainment firm Buzzfeed recently outed the identities of two of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) four founders — i.e., “Gordon Goner” and “Gargamel” — as Greg Solano and Wylie …

The Russian Federal Taxation Service (FNS) is actively monitoring the cryptocurrency market to prevent tax evasion, FNS head Daniil Egorov said. Cryptocurrencies can potentially cause “significant erosion” to Russia’s tax base, Egorov argued in a Monday interview with the local publication RBC. But cryptocurrency transactions are still traceable and should be reported, the official said, adding that FNS is ready to deploy automated tracking systems to process big data volumes. “When you get into the digital space, you still leave a trail somewhere. And it’s a matter of time before this trail is identified,” Egorov declared. The official also noted …

As new technology becomes available to more and more end-users, our world is only becoming more interconnected. However, as the spread of such technology progresses, so does the reach of big tech. Many of these companies now hold vast amounts of personal user data — information that includes a user’s location, their activity on third-party websites and even the contents of users’ emails — this is astonishing for those in a liberal democracy where concepts of freedom and social responsibility were both built upon expectations of privacy in one’s own communications. As a result, your personal data may be subject …

Privacy is a complicated topic. Few would argue that privacy is not important. It’s generally more interesting to talk about things that are disputable. So, the limited arguments against privacy actually make it somewhat boring to discuss and easy to take for granted. As Edward Snowden famously said: “Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like arguing that you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” However, what if your privacy is not a priority? What if your privacy is not guaranteed? What if everything you do is under …

Major Bitcoin (BTC) ATM operators in the United States are joining forces to fight illicit activity related to Bitcoin ATMs. Bitcoin ATM operators DigitalMint and Coinsource have launched the Cryptocurrency Compliance Cooperative (CCC), a new association that aims to establish compliance standards for the Bitcoin ATM industry. The new compliance effort has launched with support from major blockchain analytics firms, such as Chainalysis and Elliptic, among its 15 initial members. The CCC is now encouraging participation from cash-based crypto money services businesses, regulators, financial institutions, as well as non-state and law enforcement agencies. The association specifically targets Bitcoin ATMs to …

A high-performance, layer-two solution based on zk-rollups is designed to bring cross-chain privacy to digital assets. The Zecrey protocol enables account balances and transaction amounts to be encrypted — delivering anonymity and hiding relationships between senders and recipients. It also means that only an owner knows how much crypto is in their wallet. Bridges to a number of blockchain platforms also ensure a number of digital assets can interact with each other, all while ensuring confidentiality isn’t compromised. This is thanks to the use of the customized Sigma protocol. All of this is achieved without foregoing speed, and the protocol …

A network that’s home to tools and applications championing anonymity has announced that it is exploring the development of oxUSD, a privacy preserving stablecoin. Oxen’s network is already used to power the anonymous messaging app Session — as well as Lokinet, a router that offers an alternative to Tor. However, the project’s team say their infrastructure is capable of handling so much more. They believe a private stablecoin would be a powerful complement to the products that are already on offer, delivering instant and untraceable digital payments. When it comes to the rationale behind launching such a digital asset, Oxen …

A self-funded, community-driven decentralized blockchain wants to create a privacy coin ecosystem that doesn’t consume large amounts of energy. This platform, called BlackHat Coin, will use proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mining in addition to implementing its privacy layer on the zk-SNARK sapling protocol to provide fast, anonymous, and untraceable payments. “Today, it is not a secret to anyone that artificial intelligence-based systems for analyzing cryptocurrency transactions have been developed, terms of tokens use have been tightened, the interests of various centralized projects have been lobbied in every possible way,” the project said in its whitepaper. According to them, despite the fact …

In a battle of animal-themed cryptocurrencies, a bullock-branded, anonymity-focused protocol is making the case that it is faster, safer and cleaner than the shiba inu-faced joke coin that became a top 10 cryptocurrency this year, largely on the strength of Elon Musk’s memes. Animals aside, the Oxen privacy coin does have some reason to compare itself with market darling Dogecoin. Speed, for one. While DOGE’s block time is one minute compared to OXEN’s two, Oxen can use what it calls Blink technology, which is the default setting for OXEN to make the transactions nearly instant. On top of that, Oxen …