Darknet Markets is increasingly returning to Bitcoin (BTC) as their primary cryptocurrency due to increasing liquidity and accessibility challenges associated with privacy-focused coins such as Monero (XMR), according to Eric Jardine, Cybercrime Research Lead at Chainalysis.
“After larger exchange delisted XMR, we observed a significant increase in Bitcoin flow,” Jardine said in an interview with Coindesk. “Reduced availability is guiding users back toward Bitcoin.”
Many Western markets on Darknet-a part of the Internet that hosted an encrypted network and only available through specialized anonymity development tools either fully moved to Monero or operated with it parallel to Bitcoin before the delivers. XMR fell off after it was removed from larger exchanges.
OKX removed XMR and other privacy -focused tokens including Dash (Dash) and Zcash (ZCH) by the end of 2023. Binance announced in February 2024 that it planned to de-list Monero.
“When a coin or token no longer meets this standard or the industry is changing, we do a more in -depth review and potentially define it,” Binance said at the time.
On-Chain data from Bitinfochars shows that the daily number of Monero transactions is halved from this time last year.
“To be an effective kind of exchange medium, you need some liquidity and a certain amount of accessibility,” Jardine said.
Jardine emphasized that illegal cryptocurrency transactions represent only a smaller proportion of overall crypto activity.
“Typically, illegal transactions at or less than 1% of total crypto activities. While it is important to tackle these problems, it is broad marking of crypto negatively inaccurately and counterproductive.”
Chainalysis data shows that approx. 0.14% of all transactions in crypto, approx. $ 50 billion involves illegal activity, with an increase in stableecoins as an illegal payment mechanism.
StableCOin issuers are fighting back, with the throne-led T3 Financial Crime Unit, a group of throne, USDT-Sissuer Tether and TRM Labs freezing over $ 100 million in Illikfonde.
Jardine also noted that law enforcement authorities prioritize darknet markets primarily based on their scale and involvement in the fentanyl trade.
Its presence escalates significantly the likelihood of a darknet market attracting attention to law enforcement, he said, because combating the drug is a priority for international law enforcement.
“Markets have a kind of different levels of sensitivity to fentanyl -related sales,” he said. “Some claim they don’t, so not police suppliers; some claim they don’t, but then they do. Some will sell precursor products but not finished products.”
In fact, one of the latest busts in Darknet Market was nemesis online market. The US Ministry of the Treasury’s Office for Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) specifically cited the role of the market in the fentanyl trade as a reason for the city.
And as a result, OFAC sanctioned a number of crypto -cartoon books tied to its operator, Behrouz Parsarad: 44 BTC addresses and 5 XMR cartoons.
