Last month, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent approximately 10,000 letters to cryptocurrency holders regarding their crypto holdings. The IRS has begun sending letters to taxpayers with digital currency transactions that potentially failed to report income and pay the resulting tax from digital currency transactions or did not report their transactions properly. Those who already received letter 6173, titled “Reporting Virtual Currency Transactions” on July 16 now have less than a week to reply to the IRS. The most serious of the trio of letters that were disseminated (sent alongside letters 6174 and 6174-A), 6173 requires immediate action. …

A US Homeland Security official has said Bitcoin is “a lot more legitimate” as dark web users move away from the virtual currency. Speaking in an interview with CNBC, the unnamed official said criminals were shying away from Bitcoin as law enforcement was “getting a lot better” at tracking them. "I think [Bitcoin]'s a lot more legitimate than people give it credit for," the official added. The issue of Bitcoin’s anonymity has long been a sticking point for illegitimate actors operating via the dark web, with more stealthy cryptocurrencies such as Monero seeing increasing numbers of Bitcoin refugees from the …