Cryptocurrency using advanced cryptographic protocols to make transactions and addresses untraceable by default, unlike bitcoin.
Privacy coins are cryptocurrencies whose architecture natively integrates confidentiality mechanisms that make transactions, amounts and wallet addresses opaque by default. The leading representative is Monero (XMR), which combines three techniques: one-use stealth addresses, which dissociate each transaction from a permanent public address; ring signatures, which blend the signing keys of multiple users to make the sender indistinguishable within a group; and Confidential Transactions (RingCT), which conceal amounts. Other privacy protocols exist: Zcash offers optional confidentiality via zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs). In the ransomware economy, privacy coins occupy a growing role despite their lower liquidity than bitcoin: some groups apply a discount to monero payments to incentivize victims to use them, the discount directly reflecting the saved laundering cost. For insurers, ransom payment in monero substantially complicates ex-ante OFAC verification, as beneficiary identity is architecturally concealed.
The DarkSide group charged a 20 percent surcharge on bitcoin payments compared to monero. This differential pricing directly illustrated the marginal cost the attacker bore to launder traceable bitcoins, and constitutes an indirect measure of the residual prosecution risk.
monero, cryptomonnaie de confidentialité, anonymous cryptocurrency