If for nothing other than Battle Royale style video games, in the tech world, 2017 was the year of the Bitcoin. Starting for less than £1000 at the start of the year, it ended at a high peaking around $20,000. Since then, the currency has had a topsy-turvy couple of months and it seems that such a reason might be why criminals are reportedly turning away from the cryptocurrency.
In a report via Metro, it would seem that cryptocurrency thieves are turning their eyes towards other currencies.
The report suggests that criminals are a little put off by the high-value of the coin. While the basis of cryptocurrencies is their owner’s anonymity, those of a more dubious career choice feel that Bitcoin has become a little too high profile for their liking.
They have therefore begun looking towards alternative currencies such as Monder, Zcash, and Dash.
It is thought that the additional anonymity of those currencies is the main factor of attraction.
Jarek Jacubchek, who is a cybercrime expert at Europol, has said: “We can see a quite obvious and distinct shift from bitcoin to cryptocurrencies that can provide a higher level of privacy. So basically, you can achieve a higher level of privacy using these ‘altcoins’, and these altcoins are either using stealth as the basis, like Monero. There are also coins like Dash that do not have stealth addresses, they have transparent addresses, but they have a mixing process that is part of the protocol.”
The bottom line is that just because of this news, don’t think that your Bitcoin is entirely safe.
It does seem, however, that Bitcoin might not be the center of criminal attention, for the future at least. Always be careful though, your mining earnings are hard earned these days.
What do you think? Surprised at this news? – Let us know in the comments!
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