Topic: The IRS offers reward to anyone able to break Monero and the LN - page 2. (Read 256 times)

I also have a similar thread, SEC offered a 625K bounty for a tool to track LN and Monero.

As others have commented on them, government will do everything to break our anonymity with Monero and then some, to get those tax evaders as well. So it will never be an ending battle here, cat and mouse game, as the saying goes.

Nothing but a desperate attempt, just shows how good Monero is and that is serving the purpose if anyone had any doubts regarding that.

Lol, they are trying hard to crack down on the networks which provide anonymity but, I don't think it would be that easy to break Monero in fact, I think it will cost hacker more to break into Monero then the IRS reward.

That's certainly true, mate. However, not everyone posses trading skills. I think that the $625k reward is more than enough to attract hackers in breaking down Monero and the Lightning Network. This is of course, unethical. But the government wouldn't care more or less as long as they get what they want. Their main excuse is that crypto can be used for money laundering and terrorist financing. But we all know their hidden intentions. Since privacy coins like Monero and Grin are virtually untraceable (sort of), they become a threat to the existing monetary system. In case of the Lightning Network, it's much easier to break it since nodes have a collection of IP addresses linked to them. Even if the IRS successfully manages to find someone to do their dirty work, developers from the aforementioned projects will improve network security to tackle the agency's efforts in the long run.

With the Monero blockchain constantly improving itself every 6 months with a new hard fork, I don't see how the US government will be able to maintain surveillance on the network. In the end, they might as well give up trying to expose the identity of crypto users on various blockchain networks. If governments efforts are in vain, they might declare crypto/Blockchain tech to be illegal. No matter what happens, crypto will be here to stay thanks to its decentralized and open source nature. Just my thoughts

$625K I think will motivate already but then its IRS that they are dealing to which is quite not an agency that someone from crypto would trust.

You can see this monero is really a threat to them and you can see how much potential XMR in the future. Its still fungible even if they will ask the CEX not to accept it anymore, the rising popularity of DEX will just unstoppable.

Reward is $625,000? Wouldn't you make lot's of more money if you shorted monero with all the possible leverage right before giving the info? I mean it wouldn't be ethical but one could argue that breaking monero and giving the info to IRS is not ethical either. Or would that be considered insider trading?

According to an article on Cointelegraph, the US taxation agency (the IRS) is offering an attractive reward for anyone able to break the world's biggest privacy coin, as well as, Bitcoin's Lightning Network.

In a world where nothing is perfect, existing technologies have their own flaws. With this government initiative, the probability of compromising the XMR blockchain and the LN "Layer-Two" scaling solution becomes higher than ever. Of course, this is if someone is able to successfully crack into the aforementioned blockchain networks. Developers can easily counterattack government's efforts via a hard fork or something similar. However, by the time a fix is implemented, the government would've already exposed some users on the network. This raises some concerns, since it could threaten the privacy of people in crypto land.

Do you think the IRS will be able to find someone that will break into Monero and the Lightning Network? Or will it be impossible to achieve? What will be the outcome of crypto once it becomes compromised by government agencies? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.