Darknet markets increasingly return to Bitcoin (BTC) such as its primary cryptocurrency due to the increase in liquidity and accessibility challenges associated with privacy -centered coins such as Monero (XMR), according to Eric Jardine, the cybercrime research leadership leadership in the chain.
“After the main exchanges excluded XMR, we observed a significant increase in Bitcoin inputs,” Jardine said in an interview with Cindensk. “Reduced accessibility is to return to users to Bitcoin.”
Many western markets in Darknet, a part of the Internet housed within an encrypable and accessible network only through specialized tools that provide anonymity, had completely moved to Monero or operated with it in parallel with Bitcoin before expectations. XMR fell after he retired from the main exchanges.
OKX eliminated XMR and other privacy -centered tokens, including Dash (Dash) and ZCASH (ZCH) at the end of 2023. Binance announced in February 2024 that it planned to get rid of monero.
“When a currency or Token no longer meets this standard, or the industry changes, we carry out a deeper review and eliminate it potentially,” Binance said at that time.
The data in the Bitinfocharts chain show that the daily number of monero transactions has been reduced by half from this time last year.
“To be an effective type of exchange medium, you need a certain amount of liquidity and a certain amount of accessibility,” Jardine said.
Jardine emphasized that illegal cryptocurrency transactions represent only a minor part of the total cryptographic activity.
“In general, illicit transactions constitute or less than 1% of total cryptographic activities. Although addressing these problems, it is essential to label in general the cryptography is negatively inaccurate and counterproductive.”
Chain data shows that approximately 0.14% of all cryptography transactions, about $ 50 billion, imply illicit activity, with an increase in stable as an illicit payment mechanism.
Stablecoin issuers are struggling, with the T3 financial crimes unit led by Tron, a group composed of Tron, USDT-Issuer Tether and TRM Labs freezing more than $ 100 million in Illict funds.
Jardine also pointed out that the law enforcement agencies prioritize Darknet markets mainly based on their scale and participation in fentanyl trade.
Its presence significantly increases the probability that a Darknet market attracts attention to the application of the law, he said, because fighting drugs is a priority for the application of international law.
“Markets have different levels of sensitivity to sales related to fentanyl,” he said. “Some claim that they do not, then do not police sellers; some claim that they do not, but then they will sell precursor products but not finished products.”
In fact, one of the most recent busts in the Darknet market was the Nemesis online market. The Department of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Treasury Department specifically cited the role of the market in fentanyl trade as a reason for the bust.
And, as a result, ofac sanctioned a series of cryptographic wallets tied to its operator, Behrouz Parkad: 44 BTC addresses and 5 XMR wallets.
