Bitcoin Forum

The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets, overlay networks which use the Internet but require specific software, configurations or authorization to access. The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by search engines, although sometimes the term "deep web" is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.


Every affair in the dark web will use Bitcoin as a method of payment. In the dark web there are various illegal businesses such as the sale of illegal firearms, drug trafficking, assassins and hackers.

What are your thoughts on this Bitcoin as a payment?

The dark/deep web is using not only bitcoin, but also other cripto curriencies, in the majority bitcoin
It is normal, because bitcoin and other cripto curriencies are without tracking, so you can buy all, like drugs and arms, and dont have any risk that police can bust you
I think this isnt a abuse

I agree with your views that this isn't an abuse. It is just a feature of Bitcoin which makes it attractive to the dark web. Just like it depends how you use a knife. People can choose to kill or save someone with a knife.

Well, people have been using paper money (and gold and silver coins before that) as a method of payment for illegal activities for many centuries. Is it an abuse? Bitcoin is just an instrument, and as many instruments it may be used both for good and for bad.

Unless some poor bitcoin comes to my door and starts crying that she/he has been abused by being sold to buy dope I don't see the abuse.
And where should be the bitcoin abuse?

People will use anything for buying either illegal stuff or legal stuff but anonymously.
Do you thing that with crypt gone darkness will go away and shut down?
Or do you think that darknet market place have been born only after bitcoin?

Ever heard of alt.drugs ?

Yup! I agree with you  :). The divers in the deepweb use bitcoins in their transactions instead of using conventional money. I think they use bitcoins because it's very practical (it's existing in your computer so it's easy to buy/pay) and it's safe to use in terms that you don't need to have meet ups therefore you are still secured and anonymous.
In addition, I've read an article that it can also used as payment for torturing adult people and even an innocent child.

Even without Bitcoin, criminals will do crimes by using any means. They can use cash for their transactions. Criminals will always be criminals. They will do whatever it takes do what they need to do. We shouldn't put the blame into Bitcoin. Let's look on its brighter side. Bitcoin do help a lots of people.

The idea that the dark web or the people into dark web can be abusing Bitcoin is a good topic to discuss actually as certainly there are pros and cons to the said issue. However, we have to notice that the dark web had been in existence even before the advent of Bitcoin and they used other means of exchange back then. When Bitcoin came into existence, they realized that cryptocurrency afforded some level of anonymity (though not absolute as we now learned). It is not just Bitcoin actually because I heard that Monero is also very popular in the dark web (can be the reason for its recent surge?). So far, whenever I heard some news about the dark web and about how the authorities are trying their best to track and stopped the dark trades, there is no suggestion that Bitcoin can partly at fault. I guess if they would do that then that is just akin to blaming the US Dollar for some terroristic and hijacking incidents.

I agree but without bitcoin or even other cryptos, criminals will still find alternative for illegal bizs.

Well, according to the articles about dark web that I've read on internet, bitcoin is used as a mode of payment for illegal transactions. We can't argue on that one because bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and people who transact in dark web will have no hussle in buying the things they are looking for. However, my point is that as long as you use bitcoin in good ways (buying stuffs, paying bills, etc), there's nothing to worry about.

that's exactly how we should look at this situations we cant stop them by doing their illegal activities and lets not put bitcoin in that scenario where as its big part can be use in such act but look at the brighter side of this system as countries noticing how easy bitcoin can be work with and more investors and business owners also
seeing good potential for an easy transaction method.

yeah its true. criminals are every where, bad guys are every where, so its up to them how do they use bitcoin and i think you cant say it is bitcoin abuse. bitcoin makes them more secure and anonymous.

no it won't.
there is always going to be some usages in dark web or any shady and illagal activity, and that is like any other currency that you can thing of, USD, EUR, CNY,...
but it is no longer 2009-2011 that people think bitcoin is anonymous or is their only option. right now there are anonymous coins that have all the attention from these criminals and they are using those anon coins such as Monero in dark web instead of the easily-traceable-bitcoin.

Foremost, please don't use these colors, I could barely read para.

And on the subject, now darkweb uses monero as it gives more anonymity.

I wouldn't call it "abuse" to be honest. It's more of just taking advantage of bitcoin being somewhat anonymous in an extent. Calling it "abuse" would be too fatfetched.

People are talking shit about bitcoin because of it being used in the illegal trades markets, as if fiat wasn't being used in trading drugs in present and in the past. I think bitcoin just became an easier-to-use alternative payment method for illegal products. I don't think it significantly increased the trade volumes of illegal items.

very reasonable, because bitcoin is anonymous, can not know who the owner
maybe if the deep web uses another payment processor, it will be too easy to track.
because as we know items sold there are illegal items

I think it's possible because bitcoin is decentralized, it's possible to be used in any transactions such as payment for drug trade, extortion, and other criminal activities. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency transactions leaves no track, so it's safer for them to use it in their transactions. It's one of the best characteristic of bitcoin but somehow it's a little bad because other people take advantage of it.

Yes,dark web is very dangerous web..you can many type of criminals there like assasins,hacker and drug seller..

What is stopping you from buying the same kind of goods and services from the street with cash? If I wanted to do this, I would not deal with a face less entity on a anonymous website. < You could be dealing with a law enforcement agent > Most people still buy guns with cash. < Cash is more anonymous than Bitcoin >

Most criminals do not understand Bitcoin yet, so they will not trust it. < I have a hard time explaining it to normal honest law abiding people, so just imagine how difficult it would be to explain it to a drug dealer on the street. >

This whole thing are being blown up by the media for sensationalism as "click bait" to draw people to their sites and to sell printed media.

Well this is the wrong usage of Bitcoin but this is the consequences, because we can't prevent this kind of things happened,Bitcoin was design to have an anonymity transaction, but not only Bitcoin is being used for illegal things as long as it valuable it can be used for a wrong purpose, so I don't have any objection, Bitcoin is just a tool, how you used it, it depends on the person

How is that a Bitcoin abuse. Well you can buy drugs and firearms with real money as well so is that an abuse to real money as well. No , it's just a mode of payment and the mode of payment can't be blamed . It's the person who is buying and selling who is to be blamed here

Welldone to whosoever came up with such a stupid idea of misusing Bitcoin. There are more important things I can achieve with Bitcoin, and I’m very sure that buying drugs, assassins, hackers and firearms are never part of it. People should look forward to using Bitcoin for good purposes, and not for something evil.

This is certainly not new but you need to understand that bitcoin is very convenient for criminals. It's practically untraceable and transactions can take place internationally relatively quickly. This abuse, as you like to call it, is not really good publicity for the bitcoin technology but you need to realize that cash is even worse. It has been proven that 80% of cash have traces of cocaïne on it. So don't even ask how many bills have been used to purchase illegal substances.

Dark web existed even when there were no bitcoins, crime and criminals existed even when there were no bitcoins so there's nothing bitcoin or cryptocurrency has to do with the rise in crimes, criminals always find a way or the other to get done whatever they want to if they can't get it done with fiat they do it with bitcoin but that doesn't mean it's bitcoin's fault it's governments or law enforcement authorities incompetence which is the main cause for the growing number of crimes.

A small percentage of bitcoin is used in the dark web for illegal purposes and then for ransomwares, money laundering, and other financial crimes. Why bitcoin is being used for all these illegal purposes, because it is pseudonymous, still not anonymous. The government recently took down Alphabay and Hansa and then the BTC-E money laundering case.

It has been quite some time since Bitcoin is being labelled as a currency used by criminals. From a legal usage point of view, bitcoin is secure, transparent, decentralized and protects your privacy, but still trackable if the government wants to and sooner or later governments would be going hard on people/businesses using bitcoin for illegal purposes. So I don't think bitcoin would be a popular currency for illegal usage in the future.

What abuse? If you really think that is abuse, then what do you think of the abuse on the fiat currencies that are used in buying and selling drugs, money laundering and other criminal operations?

Your thinking is flawed and Bitcoin, if used wisely, is the perfect tool for "criminals" who want to operate outside of regulations.

The fact that 80% of the cash has traces of cocaine.  It only proves that all around are drug addicts.
Money (dollars, euros) is also used in the genus of drugs, weapons, people. And what now to ban all the money?

Bitcoin is mainly used on dark markets because it's much harder to trace than fiat currencies, not because it's criminal currency itself. But many people still think that so they need to be better informed and media could help with that if there was good will. Every currency could be abused for different things and so can bitcoin too and doesn't deserve bad reputation because of some people who use it for illegal purposes.

I am agree. I am not a pro about the dark net, but I suppose they start to use bitcoin and other crypto one of the first, before other people from other the world started to use it in daily life. Now we see how bitcoin become accepted on government's level, but I suppose after the era of bitcoin will pass it will come back in the deep net to become payment for illegal transactions.

Emphasis added - mine.

Yes, if there was goodwill in the media!  Journalism is a business, certainly there are those that are professional and follow ethical (but this is subjective) standards, but I agree, like most money has a trace of cocaine on it, most journalists have a trace of the need to make money in them.

Not faulting them, I do too, money buys milk and bread.

Claiming Bitcoin is a "criminal currency" is waaayyy off if that is what you mean by abuse.  Does Bitcoin facilitate it being used in illegal activities, sure, kind of like paper money facilitates carrying larger amounts because it is lighter than a coin.

The dark web is going to continue its operations with or without bitcoin. It just so happened that bitcoin is a pseudonymous currency that can be used to buy things discreetly. But so are fiat and other forms of assets that can be used for trading goods and services, be it legal or otherwise, be it on the internet or in the streets. I wouldn’t call it abuse as some are just taking advantage of the characteristic of bitcoin and if one chooses to buy goods (illegal or not), it’s their choice to do so.

This is true, but media blame Bitcoin for being used for buying drugs and weapons, for being used as method of payment for ransomware attacks. Bitcoin shouldn't be blamed for that because as you rightly said persons who break the law are who to blame. We can't abandon a good thing only because it is also good for terrorists and drug dealers. The police should take care of them, it's their job, and even if Bitcoin were banned we'd still have drug dealers and terrorists like we had them before Bitcoin was introduced.

these are the reasons why other country are not accepting or not adopting bitcoin as many criminal now adays using bitcoin and other crypto as a payment. but as for the OPS said "abuse" it isnt. Bitcoin are not regulated and no tracking, these are just one of the its features, but im not saying that we bitcoiners are criminals. there are various uses of bitcoin and it is been used by new generation criminal as they also expanding and coping to the new technology of our era.

The problem is not Bitcoin but the people using it.
Criminals use bitcoin to finance their activities because it's untraceable and they can get away with their crimes.
Anyway even if we find a way to prevent illegal use of bitcoins, criminals will not stop. Even before the appearance of Bitcoin, they used fiat currencie and they got away with it.
So, we don't have to link Bitcoin to illegal activities it's much more than that.

You are wrong on this, sorry. Fiat currencies are the most anonymous and the most fungible type of currency. Once fiat is has changed hands. there is no way for you to trace it.

Bitcoin's transactions are very easy to trace because the blockchain shows them all.

I don’t  know why people take this issue seriously. Same thing also happens between those making use of real money.

The only difference is that bitcoin  makes it a bit harder to trace the person behind the scenes. I guess they will be doing the same with ethereum, and that one is worst.

You are right. As bitcoins are for good, so they must be used in some good pieces of works.
They must be used in a path of virtue for making the lives better not making them evil. But as a matter of fact, bitcoins have been using in all unethical stigmas we have in our society.

I've read some of articles online about this deep web almost all the payment method in deep web is bitcoin or alt coin . Like the famous Silk road marketplace in the deep web they use bitcoin to buy illegal drugs that was recently put down by the FBI. Bitcoin can be easily used by criminals because of its anonymity so there's no way anyone can track your transaction.

Honestly i cant think of any ways in order to prevent the illegal use of bitcoin in the dark web.
The usage of bitcoin wether for good or evil would always depend on the person using it...
And we cant deny the fact that the use of bitcoin xan be really popular over wrongdoers since it provides them the greatest anonymity as compared to other available ways of payment...

Deep web is the site that only some know , this site contains buying/selling of illegal drugs, weapon or kind of guns ,dark web  for me is the site that not safe if youre begginer this contains child pornography torturing people if i correct . but before you access the deep web you need software to access this. And in this site they used bitcoin