Privacy-centered cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) has reached a 2-year price high after surging more than 200% year-to-date.
Monero has continued to rally alongside a general price increase for bitcoin and alts. XMR reached $139 on October 26, its highest point since September 2018.
The altcoin is up more than 200 percent year-to-date, with a surge in value of more than 50 percent occurring within the last seven weeks.
Speaking in an interview with CoinDesk earlier month, David Jevans, CEO of blockchain forensics firm CipherTrace said Monero was tracking bitcoin’s price.
He said,
Speculators, algorithmic traders look to have fueled the price rally.
Despite the price increase, there is some regulatory concern associated with the privacy-focused crypto-asset. Last month the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a bounty for anyone who could develop a solution for tracing XMR transactions.
The bounty, worth up to $625,000, sought prototypes from private contractors and individuals to identify personal information belonging to Monero wallet users.
The proposal read,
IRS-CI is seeking a solution with one or more contractors to provide innovative solutions for tracing and attribution of privacy coins, such as expert tools, data, source code, algorithms, and software development services.
The regulatory agency continued, citing a rise in privacy coin usage for cybercrimes while noting the “limited investigative resources” available for tracking XMR transactions.
Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com