Days back, US Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), in conjunction with other Federal prosecutors filed money-laundering charges against the owners of BitMEX while the company’s CTO was arrested concerning the case. The arrest of the company’s CTO, Samuel Reed sent ultimate shock waves into the crypto space.
This wasn’t the first time such waves were felt in the crypto space as recently, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offered a bounty of $625,000 to anyone who could crack Monero and layer-two blockchain solution, the Bitcoin lightning network. IRS also publicized a $500,000 payment upfront, with a further performance-based $125,000 paid 8 months later.
On September 30, the IRS unveiled two Monero-cracking champions, ChainAnalysis, and Integra FEC among 24 applicants.
XMR/USD Daily Chart
Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused, secure and untraceable cryptocurrency launched in 2014 presently trades at $103.75.
$625,000 to ‘Crack’ Monero, What Happens If?
Pawel Kuskowski, CEO of CoinFirm opined that with the present level of cryptography, it may be almost impossible to ‘crack’ Monero but stated that it doesn’t infer that Monero assets tracing is impossible in an effective way.
On what will happen to Monero’s value if it loses its privacy powers, Kuskowski stated his belief that XMR’s value is almost close to zero if its anonymity aspect is removed.
Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace has a slightly different opinion that tracing Monero will always be more predictive than completely deterministic citing the fact that Monero’s makeup is quite different from Bitcoin’s.
He gives the most likely scenario to be an initial reduction in price if Monero is ‘cracked’ however, Jevans expects XMR to rebound in price once it sees listing on additional crypto exchanges. A higher trading volume will be the consequence of citing Bitcoin value higher than XMR.
A conflicting aspect is that Monero already trades on a vast number of crypto exchanges due to its privacy-centric nature while XMR has also been delisted on some exchanges like Huobi and Bithumb significantly reducing its volume.
DASH Relinquishes Privacy Coin Status
Once regarded as one of the crypto market’s top privacy-focused assets, Dash (DASH) no longer falls into this category, according to the parent company, Dash Core Group. Fernando Gutierrez, Dash Core Group CMO recently stated when inquired about the status of Dash as a privacy coin:
“No, Dash is a payment cryptocurrency, with a strong focus on usability, which includes speed, cost, ease of use, and user protection through optional privacy.”
Dash came into existence in 2014 as a fork of Bitcoin. Originally called XCoin, before changing to Darkcoin, and then finally Dash, it branded itself as a privacy-focused asset.
The project’s white paper stated, “Dash is the first privacy-centric cryptographic currency based on the work of Satoshi Nakamoto [Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator]”.
However, though dash is no longer privacy-focused, it still has a feature called PrivateSend, giving users the option of greater anonymity. This is coming as privacy coins have faced significant scrutiny from governing bodies, as seen by the IRS’ $625,000 bounty for cracking Monero.
What Happens if Tether (USDT) Falls to CFTC Caprices?
An analyst recently called attention to the fact that US bodies have not only targeted BITMEX but also have had their focus set on Tether and by relation, Bitfinex.
Bitcoin’s crash to $3800 partly alluded to fears of Tether being insolvent. Tether (USDT) was also central to a CFTC investigation involving Bitcoin price manipulation.
USDT is also now the base trading pair on several top cryptocurrency exchanges. A total collapse of Tether could result in a total collapse in the greater crypto market, and Bitcoin especially. But what if?
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