Portland — Bitcoin is losing its lustre with some of its earliest and most avid fans — criminals — giving rise to a new breed of virtual currency. Privacy coins such as monero, designed to avoid tracking, have climbed faster over the past two months as law enforcers adopt software tools to monitor people using bitcoin. A slew of analytic firms, such as Chainalysis, are getting better at flagging digital hoards linked to crime or money laundering, alerting exchanges and preventing conversion into traditional cash. The EU’s law-enforcement agency, Europol, raised alarms three months ago, writing in a report that "other crypto-currencies, such as monero, ethereum and Zcash, are gaining popularity within the digital underground." Online extortionists, who use ransomware to lock victims’ computers until they fork over a payment, have begun demanding those currencies instead. On December 18, hackers attacked up to 190,000 WordPress sites per hour to get them to produce monero, according t...
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