CipherTrace Filed For Patent To Be Able To Trace XMR Transactions

CipherTrace filed for patent for a new technology that is able to trace monero transactions as we are reading more in today’s Monero news.

The blockchain forensics company CipherTrace filed for a patent application that will allow it to trace XMR transactions. The company sells these anti-Monero technologies to us Government which is stoked about the volume of illicit trading on Monero and wants it to be tracked down. Monero is now the fifteenth cryptocurrency with a market cap of $2.17 billion so many exchanges chose not to list it. The chasing game between Monero and cipherTrace continued this week once the company announced that it had filed two patent applications for a new system that will trace Monero transactions which are designed to be untraceable.

The first patent dubbed “techniques and probabilistic methods for tracing monero” laid the groundwork for the company to develop more methods that will assign a number to XMR transactions and cluster owners by adopting probabilistic approaches to money laundering controls. These approaches and methods include a set of mathematical tools and concepts that have to deal with uncertainty in probability terms just like the weather forecast which shows a 15% probability of precipitation. The company also filed for a patent for “systems and methods for investigating Monero” which creates parts of the forensic tool to trace XMR transactions so the company launched a new toolkit for it in August.

Monero was designed to be untraceable since the network hides transactions altogether in order to hide the sender and receiver. CipherTrace however claims that the patent will allow for the transactions to be entirely traceable. However, the patents were not approved. CipherTrace started selling these XMR technologies to the United States Department of Homeland Security as a part of their $5 million contracts which accounts for 69% of the company’s federal government contract award.

Also, the Internal Revenue Services awarded a $625,000 contract to Chainalysis to also try and crack Monero. CipherTrace described Monero as “the second-favorite cryptocurrency of choice among criminals just behind Bitcoin.” Monero supports 45% of darknet market transactions according to the company. XMR is the fifteenth-biggest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap with a total market capitalization of about $2.17 billion. Some exchanges like Coinbase decided not to list XMR because regulators don’t really like it while ShapeShift delisted the coin entirely.