Pre-solicitation suggestions for documents Homeland Security is attempting to track payments for private currencies

The pre-solicitation document suggests that internal security should track private-currency transactions

The United States and cryptocurrency have had a complicated relationship lately, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission created the definition of each of the different types of digital asset coins. Although the only token with a significant amount of regulatory details was a security token, a new pre-solicitation document could allow another US authority to monitor private currencies as well.

At this time, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a research program that has published a recent pre-solicitation that illustrates how bitcoin is used for a transaction. Although the document talks about the different uses of cryptocurrency in the commercial and government industries, much of the examination has to do with coins that focus on privacy. Considering the role of DHS, the entity wants to analyze these currencies forensic to see the risk of criminal activities.

Some of the tokens discussed in the article included ZCash and Monero, which maintain a certain level of privacy and anonymity for their customers. However, without any kind of identifying information, there is no way to see the origin of the transaction or even how much, leaving open the opportunity for cyber criminals.

The document says,

"Even if these characteristics are desirable, there is also an irresistible interest in tracing and understanding illegal blockchain transactions and actions".

Continue, saying,

"This proposal requires solutions that allow law enforcement investigations to perform forensic analysis on blockchain transactions.This analysis can be addressed in various ways and may consider cases of using different data situations depending on whether additional data are available from out-of-chain sources. "

Also with ZCash and Monero called in the document, the entity also comments that there are a lot of platforms that are currently under development with the same privacy priorities. Because of these developments, the solutions that will eventually be implemented will need to be broader regulations or "provide work approaches to deal with new blockchain implementations".

The document is clear three phases that the authorities would bring with a proposal for private currencies. However, the document explicitly states that the agency is not currently looking for an active solution at this time. Instead, there will be a real solicitation scheduled for release around 19 December^th, although the interested persons have the possibility to contact the authors up to the publication.

Consumers who wish to learn more about the document can read it in its entirety via Scribd at the address https://www.scribd.com/document/394798316/FY-19-SBIR-Pre-Solicitation-Topics#from_embed.