Privacy coins Privacy coins, such as Monero, are cryptocurrencies with privacy enhancing features built into their protocols. They have embedded many of the other techniques mentioned above, such as stealth addresses, mixing and CoinJoin services, privacy-enhanced communication and secured browsing, and more. Their aim: to make the process of tracing transactions and fast-track investigations much harder. Here are a few of the diverse technologies that Moreno uses to enhance security and privacy: + Ring Signatures are designed to protect users’ privacy on the input side. This is a type of digital signature in which a group of possible signers are merged to produce a distinctive signature that can authorize a transaction. It is computationally infeasible to determine which of the group members' keys was used to produce the signature. In this way, ring signatures ensure that transaction outputs are untraceable. + RingCT stands for Ring Confidential Transaction. This improved mechanism is a combination of Ring Signatures (see above) and confidential transactions, which together hide transaction amounts, sources, and destinations. Additionally, it prevents tracking the involved parties’ historical activity on the blockchain. + Stealth Addresses serve as an important part of Monero's inherent privacy, hiding transaction recipients (see page 8). These mechanisms set the stage for a shift toward Monero as the currency of choice for perpetrators of illicit transactions. 2 1 Tracking activity on the blockchain and following the illicit money trail to an exchange 3 Keeping up with financial investigations in the crypto age 10