Blockchain intelligence firm CipherTrace has filed its second patent for tracing Monero (XMR) transactions, according to an official announcement published on Nov. 20.

• Called “Techniques and Probabilistic Methods for Tracing Monero”, Ciphertrace’s new patent covers various ways to unmask transaction data
• The techniques covered include statistical and probabilistic methods for scoring transactions and clustering likely owners, decoy reduction and money laundering controls 
• The firm also appears to be developing tools to assist investigators, as the patent also cites transaction visualization tools to track stolen or illicit Monero and forensic tools to explore Monero transaction flows to assist in financial investigations
• This patent follows up on a previous application titled “ Systems and Methods for Investigating Monero”; these tools have been in development since 2019, within the scope of its work with the Department of Homeland Security
• The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is looking into privacy coins, awarding two firms a grant worth $625,000 each to break Monero’s encryption
• Governments have begun cracking down on privacy coins, with South Korea commanding exchanges to delist them in 2021