The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will pay up to $625,000 to anyone who hacks untraceable cryptocurrency Monero and other privacy coins, according to an official proposal. Spread last week.

The proposal stated the following:

IRS-CI is seeking a solution with one or more contractors to provide innovative solutions to track privacy coins, such as expert tools, data, source code, algorithms, and software development services.

Privacy coins like Monero allow users to transfer their money with strong privacy that is not usually available in other cryptocurrencies.

Monero coin uses different methods to encrypt transactions, such as obfuscating transaction amounts and sender and receiver wallet addresses.

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That is, unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, which provide the ability to know the addresses and wallets of transactions and thus access the identity of the person.

The IRS added in its proposal:

Currently, there are limited investigative resources to track transactions involving privacy cryptocurrencies such as Monero or other transactions that provide privacy to illegal actors.

Bonus for Monero Network Hack:

Under the terms set out in the proposal, the developers and various individuals are invited to provide a working prototype of how to hack the Monero network.

Suggestions can be in the form of a system that provides identification information for a Monero wallet user, to the exact time, date and amount of a given transaction on the network, to more complex tools that can statistically predict when a given address is likely to make a transfer.

The IRS is taking applications through September 16.

Those who accept the challenge will receive their reward in two stages:

First, an initial payment of $500,000 to develop and demonstrate a working concept of a privacy hacking tool (due eight months after the proposal has been accepted)

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Then, a payment of $125,000 after a pilot test was completed and approved by the government.

The rise of cybercrime:

The US Internal Revenue Service indicated that the increasing criminal use of privacy coins such as Monero was one of its motivations behind the proposal and the monetary value offered, noting that privacy coins are becoming more common and are being used more by illegal actors.

The authority stated:

In April 2020, a ransomware group called Sodinokibi told that future ransom payments would be in Monero (XMR) instead of Bitcoin due to transaction privacy concerns.

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So far, companies like Chainalysis have worked with the US government to uncover criminal activities related to popular cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin.

But even Chainalysis is having a hard time figuring out the privacy mechanisms that make cryptocurrencies like Monero impervious to any infringement of the privacy of digital transactions.

Blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace claims to have a solution to crack the crypto of Monero but this is disputed by members of the Monero community.

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