Robert Bench, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s director of applied research, thinks privacy should be a focus during the creation of digital money, not an afterthought. “Privacy is a question that we have learned is critical from a technical perspective,” Bench said during a Chamber of Digital Commerce panel on Friday: “One of our learnings is that the questions of privacy and identity must be considered at the earliest stage of the architecture. Making privacy or identity an ad hoc process is suboptimal from both a privacy or identity perspective, and most importantly from a security perspective.” A largely …

In the last month, we’ve seen the United States Federal Reserve come after BitMEX for failing to identify customers, crypto intelligence firm CipherTrace report that most crypto exchanges are not collecting enough user info, and the so-called “FinCEN Files” demonstrate that even large banks that collect and report vast troves of suspicious transactions are not doing enough to unbank the bad guys. Suffice to say, it’s a great time to be alive for compliance hardliners and a rough patch for privacy advocates, aside from a healthy recent boost in the price of Monero (XMR). Stepping back and looking at the …

Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Bank of Russia, argued that there is a line between anonymity and privacy regarding the circulation of an upcoming digital ruble. Speaking at a press conference on Oct. 23, Nabiullina said that Russia’s digital ruble will not have the same level of anonymity as cash. However, the bank expects to strengthen user privacy, Nabiullina promised, stating: “Still, we shouldn’t confuse the anonymity with confidentiality of digital ruble transactions. Indeed, there will not be the same level of anonymity that is supported by cash transactions. But confidentiality is expected to be enhanced.” Nabiullina elaborated that …

Once viewed as one of the crypto industry's top privacy-focused assets, Dash (DASH) no longer operates under that classification, according to the Dash Core Group, the body overseeing the asset and its development. When asked if Dash should remain under the category of a privacy asset, Fernando Gutierrez, CMO for the Dash Core Group, told Cointelegraph: "No, Dash is a payments cryptocurrency, with a strong focus on usability, which includes speed, cost, ease of use, and user protection through optional privacy." Dash launched as a fork of Bitcoin in 2014. Originally called XCoin, before changing its name to Darkcoin, and …

The Electric Coin Co., or ECC, the entity responsible for the advancement of privacy coin Zcash (ZEC), unveiled new code for the blockchain and crypto community. The company opened its Halo 2 source code — "an updated, more efficient version of ECC’s recursive proof composition that eliminates the need for a trusted setup in Zcash," said a Sept. 1 blog post from the ECC. "It may also advance a promising scalability solution for Zcash and other blockchains," the post added, noting the Halo structure adds speed, among other things. Initiating a private network with Zcash utilizing Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument …

Although the privacy-focused Bitcoin (BTC) wallet Wasabi Wallet recently dismissed allegations that its anonymity features may be compromised, a third-party expert disagrees. In an Aug. 19 blog post, Wasabi competitor Samourai claimed to have “discovered two potential privacy vulnerabilities in the Wasabi Wallet software.” Per the announcement, the company also found numerous issues with the anonymity of Wasabi Wallet’s CoinJoin Bitcoin mixer. Mário Havel, co-founder of crypto-and-privacy non-profit Paralelni Polis, said that Samourai’s allegations seem credible and can be verified in Wasabi’s code. He explained: “Disclosed vulnerabilities [...] are not affecting the security of the wallet. [Instead they] affect only …

Technology pioneer and cryptocurrency advocate John McAfee has just announced his departure from his own privacy asset project, Ghost. "I am abandoning the the Ghost project," he said in an Aug. 19 tweet. "Management is incapable of making a success of the project," he explained, adding, "It will, without a doubt fail." He elaborated: "I tried to explain the fundamental principles of management, but they fell on deaf ears. My apologies to those that I led astray. Sorry." McAfee has bashed Bitcoin in recent months for its lack of privacy. The tech expert set out to make his own proof-of-stake, …

A major financial watchdog in Russia is developing a new cryptocurrency analytics tool to trace major cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC) and privacy coins. Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, a federal service combating money laundering and terrorist financing, is reportedly planning to build a new analytics platform for tracking cryptocurrency transactions via artificial intelligence. Dubbed “Transparent Blockchain,” the new system is designed to track the movement of digital financial assets and identify crypto service providers to fight illicit activity related to digital assets, local news agency RBC reported on Aug. 10. According to the report, the new system is able to …

Major privacy-oriented cryptocurrency, Beam (BEAM), is making its first official move towards decentralized finance, or DeFi. In anticipation of Beam’s soon-to-come hard fork, the team behind the project updated a number of relevant specifications, paving the way to the so-called “Confidential Defi,” Beam announced to Cointelegraph on June 24. Confidential Assets are at the core of Beam’s future DeFi offering Scheduled for June 28, the hard fork will enable Confidential Assets, or Beam CA — independent tokens on the Beam network. Beam CA will be a key component in the future Beam’s DeFi offering, Beam advisor Guy Corem said. Beam …

An anonymous blockchain industry participant going by the name heyheeyheeey recently dropped an Ethereum 2.0 (ETH 2.0) staking solution on Medium in Satoshi-like fashion. The pseudonymous character did not do it for the fame, according to his recent comments to Cointelegraph. "The only thing that I'd like to clarify is that I wasn't paid, but I wasn't looking to get paid either," heyheeyheeey told Cointelegraph staff in a message. "For me it's a portfolio piece," they said, adding, "Unsolicited designs are very common in UX/UI design." The person's solution aims for scaling improvement With the public awaiting the release of …

Japanese crypto firm Freessets has announced a new technology to enhance Bitcoin wallet (BTC) privacy. According to a June 8 announcement, Freessets has created a system that allows wallets to request their addresses’ Bitcoin balances without revealing it to the servers from which they request the balances or transaction history. The statement said that conventional Bitcoin wallets explicitly ask servers for the balance of their addresses, which links the balance, transactions and addresses. However, “using the technology Fressets has developed, it is mathematically proven that the servers cannot learn anything from the user’s query.” The significance of the development Adam …

Fledgling Ethereum anonymization protocol Tornado.cash has launched completely immutable smart contracts — rendering the protocol “unstoppable” from May 21. While the project has extolled the virtues of immutability and declared that “code is law,” many within the Ethereum (ETH) community are advising against depositing funds into the protocol. Tornado.cash opts for complete immutability Tornado notes that “[t]here are pros and cons” to its dedication to immutability, declaring heightened decentralization and the inability for smart contracts to be altered as positive virtues of the protocol. However, the developers concede that “the tornado.cash team is also not able to protect the users …