Taking account of more aggressive crypto tracking measures and what they mean for future government adoption of blockchain. Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note One of the most persistent myths about Bitcoin is its supposed anonymity. More properly termed pseudonymity,…
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Getting closer to the testnet. The Dash platform will be introducing protocol versioning and other new features in its latest update. Dash announced its fourth update over the weekend. The platform normally releases new functionalities every six weeks, so the next update is expected between October 6 and 20. Dash said it is adding versions…
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A U.S. circuit court has concluded its review of a terrorism financing case that begin in 2010, saying that the NSA’s phone tapping was illegal but that it was a minor part of the evidence. In the final decision on a criminal case that began a decade ago, an appellate court has said that the…
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‘Uptake of privacy features and assets has been slow,’ the report stated. The overwhelming majority of crypto transactions do not include privacy tokens, with most traders choosing to move funds transparently rather than privately. According to crypto analytics firm Coin Metrics’ Sept. 1 State of the Network report, the combined daily transactions of three privacy…
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The implementation of this technology promises to remove the need for trusted setups. 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…
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Programmable privacy is about to become a reality. Open-source Blockchain protocol Secret Network announced its intention to add privacy-based secret contracts to its mainnet. The upgrade will take place on September 15 once the proposal is passed by the community. According to the foundation’s announcement, developers will have the opportunity to build and deploy so-called…
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Unfortunate “crypto” brand name causes the company to shut down. Crypto International, a successor of controversial Swiss company Crypto AG, is reportedly dismissing dozens of employees following a major spying scandal. As many as 70 employees had to quit Crypto International after Crypto AG was found to be selling backdoored products to benefit agencies like…
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McAfee continues to haunt the ghost ecosystem, despite abandoning its primary asset. Several days ago, technology pioneer and crypto advocate John McAfee departed his own privacy-focused asset, Ghost. He has since clarified, however, that he did not leave the endeavor entirely. “I have not abandoned the Ghost privacy ecosystem, only the GHOST privacy coin,” McAfee…
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Mario Havel of Paralelni Polis said Samourai’s allegations are correct. 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 August 19 blog post, Wasabi competitor Samourai claimed to have “discovered two potential privacy vulnerabilities in the Wasabi Wallet software.” Per…
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Some might say he’s given up the $Ghost. 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…
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