76% of dark market using Bitcoin

[imstillthebest]

Where is the confirmation of this information? It seems to me that most of the dark market still uses USD

the link is already posted on the op , you can check that out and find your self if its trully a fact or only false info  and why do you say that usd is the most use on the dark market ? that will be a hassel and you can possibly be traced if you use usd  .

ever since darknet/depweeb becomes popular , this were also the time that bitcoin shows up . that only means that bitcoin is the number one medium that is being used thier  .

[stompix]

~

consider the source and you should get your answer.
it is yet another blockchain analysis company trying to advertise their services and convince the world that they need their services so that they could sell it to them!
otherwise usage of bitcoin in dark markets was in that percentage back in 2011 and has been dropping ever since. nowadays i would be surprised if it were any negligible percentage.

~

it seems like every time another one of these blockchain tracing sites pop up, the first thing they do is publish a ton of nonsense about how bitcoin is being used for illegal stuff.
just the other day another one of these "mushroom-like" businesses released their guesswork about Binance hacked coins and Chipmixer's services used for mixing those coins!

Oh, I'm so happy seeing that more and more people are starting to call out these bs analysts.
If CNN writes something is fake news, if it's a blockchain company...it must be true 
Really getting tired of all the experts that know for certain to the last satoshi who bought what when.

In 4 f years, they haven't been able to trace 200k coins from Mt Gox but they know that Michele is buying meth worth 1.5 bucks from Rogers over the deep dark long black market. 

A lot of people stop using the actual market system once they make a lot of sales with trusted vendors, a lot of those transactions happen without escrows, really p2p, just as people here in the collectible area deal with old-timers.
But yeah, cipher trace can track everything!

[MonsterV]

Strange to see Monero and other privacy coins being so unpopular in darknet markets, is Bitcoin mixing good enough these days, or are privacy coins suffering from some problems? Maybe it's hard to convert them to BTC or fiat without raising suspicion?

There are currently some researches floating around that put Bitcoin illegal use at 1-2%, but the fact that Bitcoin is so popular sure means that something is wrong with those researches.

I thought so too. I thought Monero is taking over the dark market because of its anonymous features. Maybe it's most likely trust issues. They trust Bitcoin more than Monero because Bitcoin has been around the most and that it's easier to convert into fiat than all of altcoins without the need of exchange. Not to mention that mixer exist.

I know bitcoin has a higher trust here, but this is quite worrying for me because a few times ago I heard the news that bitcoin hackers were mixing bitcoin on chipmixers. And here I also know that this is not entirely the fault of bitcoin, but it is the fault of those who abuse it.

Especially now that there is news from CipherTrace that makes the state of bitcoin cornered, even though they are just a blockchain analysis company, but they have a considerable influence in crypto. I'm just worried that the news will be acted upon by the government, I don't expect bad things to happen to bitcoin.

[antisocial77]

It seems they dont need to use monero or another stealth coins to stay in shadow.its not surprise because more than %80 of crimes using usd so its not a big deal for illegal actvities if you have power

[Little_king]

What ever reason or techniques used to discover that is not a major issue but when fiat was also the only means of transaction or exchange in the market , we still have lots of crime out there too and none never discovered to the let of making it look like USD was the major way many countries used to launder money as easy way , so nothing new to me regard this.

[mazdafunsun]

The number " 76% " is interesting , I agree.
But I did not found what was the absolute value of the dark web turnover in the article.
I suppose that BTC is still the king because monero is harder to implement and maybe because it is harder for those who are buying stuff there to buy it - Monero is not sold in regulated exchanges , at least what i have noticed

[Vishnu.Reang]

I am not very surprised. First of all, it is not that easy to get Monero (XMR). You need to purchase XMR from the exchanges and nowadays almost all of them have KYC as a mandatory requirement. And they are keeping a close watch on anyone who withdraws XMR from these exchanges. For many of the users, opting for a Bitcoin mixer is a more anonymous route.

[Slow death]

just 4% involve Monero...

I paid more attention to this passage:

What this suggests is that while privacy coins may seem like a boon to criminals, drug gangs and terrorists, the barriers to entry for buying and selling Monero and other anonymous tokens makes them impractical for most dark market purchases and ransomware payments. They are most useful as a payment rail and to obfuscate chain hopping to more liquid tokens.

I went to google and researched the following: " where to buy and sell monero? "

and that's what I found:

https://www.google.com/search?q=where+to+buy+and+sell+monero%3F&oq=where+to+buy+and+sell+monero%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

There are many places to buy and sell anonymous coins, this kind of search seems to be done to destroy bitcoin image

[jake zyrus]

It's inevitable. But the percentage is quite high maybe because, having the same perks, they would prefer something that is more trusted by people.
Anything that has value are vulnerable for criminal or illegal transaction

[SquallLeonhart]

Is it every news that you guys must carry, now having this news here, what do you intend gaining from people reading it, just post to get merit when you are indirectly discrediting bitcoin and making it already serve like an FUD news for those who would think bitcoin is strictly being used for crime purpose.

Among, all the fiats that we have in the whole world, which fiat is mostly used and which fiat is also mostly used for crime purpose, is it not the USD?, but that does not mean that USD was created for that, but because it is the most popular fiat, that is why it had such high record in the crime report, so same way that bitcoin too has this record because it is the number one crypto generally and which is still mostly used than every other coins.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Stated in the manner it is in the OP, the reading is that 76% of the Dark Market TXs take place involving Bitcoin, which is not the case. The article referenced in the OP talks about BTC dominance of 76% over crypto TXs used in the Black Market, but does not quantify those shares vs the complete pool of TXs including FIAT.

I tried to find the information quantifies, but only managed to come across a Medium article (see https://medium.com/@tokenmeister.social/what-is-the-black-market-worth-and-how-much-of-it-is-crypto-daf46e420d8d) that stated right at the end of the text the following:

<…> To give you a clearer picture of the proportions, sources estimate that black market deals by means of cryptocurrency could go as high as $1.5 billion this year. This sounds like a huge deal. And yet — compared to the total black market valuation of $1.63 trillion, that is beer money. The rest is fiat.

Unfortunately, the source for the data (DarkWebNews) is now inaccessible, but if the data is anywhere near being true, the 76% in the title really should be properly contextualized ...

[cabron]

Where is the confirmation of this information? It seems to me that most of the dark market still uses USD

Most probably. Anon coins looks not very much needed there in the dark market. I guess during bear market those guys in that dark market realizes USD is what matters the most, not even BTC. When its only BTC that is rising among all the cryptocurency everyone even those altcoin developers lost its loyalty to their own coin, sells them all for BTC.

[jsizar]

I think that situation will change than btc will face regulation. Monero or other privacy coin will be the king of dark market. For now admins just to lazy to implement support of it

[buwaytress]

This really seems to conflict with past reports that dark market crypto use steadily transferred away from Bitcoin and into Ether and Monero. Strangely enough, can't really find these older reports online, but it was in 2016 when I first really started reading reports from these analytics.

Is it because blockchain analysis is getting better and these were underreported?

But good find on that fiat still dominates... I think that's more black market than the specific darkweb markets that only use crypto... Or have I really lost touch with the scene? Don't recall ever seeing one of those marketplaces that accepted fiat.

[alexcopper]

Where is the confirmation of this information? It seems to me that most of the dark market still uses USD

It has to do with ciphertrace's crypto tracing technology

[Sexaphiliac]

Most individuals still prefer using BTC for transactions, either for legitimate or illegitimate purposes because of the relative price security in terms of market cap. Users would not mind using an mixing/anonymization service instead of using  privacy coins.

[rmilly]

Most individuals still prefer using BTC for transactions, either for legitimate or illegitimate purposes because of the relative price security in terms of market cap. Users would not mind using an mixing/anonymization service instead of using  privacy coins.

I read somewhere that companies like Ciphertrace that do blockchain forensics are able to track funds even if after they run through a mixing service. How legitimate do we think these mixers are for btc?

[Lauren Smith]

I don't really find it surprising since it is like that with most crypto transactions. Bitcoin is still the king. Maybe the will make a darknetcoin ICO soon ^^

Most individuals still prefer using BTC for transactions, either for legitimate or illegitimate purposes because of the relative price security in terms of market cap. Users would not mind using an mixing/anonymization service instead of using  privacy coins.

I read somewhere that companies like Ciphertrace that do blockchain forensics are able to track funds even if after they run through a mixing service. How legitimate do we think these mixers are for btc?

Chipmixer recently handled some stolen bitcoins and it seems untraceable so who knows.

[undergroundartpal]

I've always thought more people who dealt with dark markets didn't adopt Monero because they wanted to be able to cash out as quickly as possible.

If absolute privacy is important, it seems like a fair tradeoff to me.

[iMark]

I doubt those data are accurate, other research shows Bitcoin have lower "dominance" on darknet. Privacy-focused cryptocurrency and altcoin such as LTC gain popularity.

See https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/cta-2018-0208.pdf

I don't think privacy coins are suffering from problems, but it's more so that not many are willing to accept them with how it becomes more difficult to convert them back to actual dollars.

But they always could exchange it with Bitcoin (and use mixer if needed) before convert BTC to USD to circumstance the problem.

I think so, there isn't just bitcoin which is the main center of use for the dark market. Moreover, the focus of bitcoin is not on privacy and anonymous transactions, there are many other altcoins that are far more anonymous that focus on the privacy of its users.

For mixer itself, it is more likely to be used for money laundering, not for darkmarket transactions.