Some conspiracy theorists promote the idea that in fact bitcoin is the development of American spies, launched in order to make all financial transactions public and verifiable.

It turns out that these theorists are in some way right. According to reports an internal US National Security Agency (NSA) by March 2013, which were provided by Edward Snowden, the NSA really worked hard to have at least one global source of data, which will be able to "help keep track of senders and recipients of Bitcoin."

Although the agency was interested in monitoring and for some competing crypto-currencies, bitcoin became the number one priority.

The NSA document showed that this source provided "such user data as payment information and Internet protocol addresses". With such information it was quite easy to calculate the required crypto-currency enthusiast.

It was expected that the work of the NSA on bitcoin-espionage will be supported by unique possibilities for filtering Internet traffic. Since 2013, the tracking of bitcoins in the NSA was conducted through the implementation of a program code-named OAKSTAR, which was a series of secret corporate partnerships that allowed the Agency to monitor traffic.

In particular, the NSA monitored the bitcoins via Moneyrocket, the OAKSTAR subprogram, which used network equipment for data collection in the Middle East, Europe, South America and Asia. The NSA report of 29 March 2013 states that by the spring of 2013 Moneyrocket was "the only source of sigdev for the purpose of" Bitcoin ", which means sigdev signals intelligence development, ie the development of intelligence. The data obtained with the help of Moneyrocket is described in documents as "full-scale surveillance", which means that all information passing through the network has been checked and at least some types of data have been saved for later analysis.

The NSA notes that part of the long-term strategy for Moneyrocket was "to involve targets that are involved in terrorism." Further work could also begin with other "goals". Thus, the illusory confidentiality of bitcoin became a bait for sending data directly to the NSA.

The NSA itself refused to comment on this matter.

Matthew Green, the author of a cryptographic protocol for the construction of anonymous payment systems on the basis of which was created cryptocurrency Zcash, said that the interest of the NSA to cryptocurrency - "bad news for privacy," because it means that in addition to a really complex problem in To make transactions completely anonymous, you also need to make sure that all network connections are protected. Greene noted that he is "rather skeptical" that using the popular Tor browser will be able to thwart the NSA in the long term. In other words, even if you trust bitcoin technology (or other crypto currency), you will also need to trust your connection to the Internet.

It is also interesting that, according to the NSA report of March 15, 2013, the crypto currency was the main goal of the NSA, but not the only one. The document also reported on Liberty Reserve, an electronic payment system registered in Costa Rica, which was used to launder money for about $ 6 billion and was closed in May 2013. Its founder Arthur Budowski (a citizen of Costa Rica of Ukrainian origin) was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but neither in the indictment nor in the court hearings did he mention the NSA's assistance in the investigation.

Just five months after the closure of Liberty Reserve feds came to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the once largest marketpleysa in darkvebe Silk Road, who was arrested on 2 October 2013 and is now serving a life sentence. Despite the fact that the documents provided by Snowden, do not answer the question of whether the NSA could conduct business Silk Road, along with the FBI, they show that the Agency has been working on tracking Bitcoin transactions for the six months before Ulbricht was arrested and Watching Liberty Reserve around the same time.

These examples underscore the serious problem in the work of American (and not only) law enforcement agencies: persons facing criminal prosecution have the right to know by what method some evidence was obtained in order to be able to challenge their legality. This is one of the main principle of litigation practically in any democratic country. Law enforcement agencies should not hide the true sources of their evidence in court, fabricating a false chain.![NSA-CPU.jpg-760x400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRypMEMZzfH8CV4qLWcHFHZ2kCQfmSWYEZArcr3c155tS/NSA-CPU.jpg-760x400.jpg)