What’s Monero?
Lately, there has been a lot of news about criminals and cryptocurrencies. Cyber hackers from around the world are hacking the world’s most prominent industries, demanding a ransom to release their victims from the threat of digital destruction. But these aren’t your everyday criminals. No longer are hackers demanding ransom with dollars — today’s hackers are demanding ransom in bitcoin.
Cybercriminals prefer to use bitcoin because of its perceived anonymity and limited traceability. However, after the FBI successfully recovered over $2 million in bitcoin paid in ransom to the hackers of Colonial Pipeline, people are discovering bitcoin isn’t as anonymous as they thought. There’s a cryptocurrency that offers even more privacy than Bitcoin that today’s criminals prefer to use — it’s called Monero.
Monero is a cryptocurrency created in 2014 and is becoming more popular amongst the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. Its main aspects are privacy and anonymity.
On the bitcoin blockchain, you can see the wallet address of the sender and recipient and the amount of bitcoin being transacted. In comparison, the monero blockchain conceals almost all transaction information. The sender and recipient’s identities, as well as the transaction amount, are concealed. But despite Monero’s heightened privacy features, Bitcoin remains the currency of choice for cybercriminals worldwide.
While bitcoin offers less privacy, many sophisticated cybercriminals have perfected strategies that make it hard for authorities to trace their transactions to the source. Will hackers continue using bitcoin, or will we see them move to currencies with more privacy, like Moreno?
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.