Exit scams and regulations disrupt global darknet markets
Recent exit scams have displaced the users of darknet markets, with Eastern European-only platform Hydra now the largest worldwide. A report published by blockchain forensics firm CipherTrace has detailed significant disruptions to the clandestine darknet marketplace sector following a spate of exit scams during recent months. Despite opportunities for new marketplaces to capture the users of the now-defunct platforms, CipherTrace notes the absence of a single platform dominating Western volume. It estimates that the Russian-focussed Hydra market is now the largest worldwide.Hydra is....
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Monero appears to have lost its darknet market integrations, and very well may have fallen victim to an exit scam. Darknet market Oasis, the first to accept Monero, has abruptly gone offline in an apparent exit scam, making off with customer funds. An estimated 150 Bitcoins were lost, as well as an indeterminate amount of Monero. Several users report that attempts to withdraw XMR from AlphaBay, the darknet market whose integration was closely correlated with the currency’s meteoric rise, were unresponsive as well. HolladsHerbs, Reddit user, posted in the /r/DarkNetMarkets subreddit a....
During the last month since the fall of Empire Market, darknet market (DNM) patrons have been migrating to alternative markets. Meanwhile, global law enforcement recently arrested 179 individuals tied to DNMs and seized over $6.5 million in cryptocurrency and cash proceeds. It hasn’t been a good month for DNM users after the fall of Empire Market, the DNM that exit scammed with over 2,638 BTC, ($30 million USD). Day in and day out, a great number of DNM patrons have been asking about joining alternative DNMs ever since Empire’s fall, and the Reddit forum r/darknet has grown to....
Scams make up the largest share of funds sent from Eastern Europe to illicit addresses. Recent research has revealed that Eastern Europe remains a very high source of cybercrime activity — both from victims to scams, and from users to darknet markets — in the cryptocurrency sector.Cryptocurrency addresses based in the Eastern European region have the second-highest exposure to illicit activity after Africa, according to a report published on Sept. 1 by blockchain research firm Chainalysis. However Eastern Europe has a much larger overall crypto economy than both Africa and Latin America....
Darknet markets are falling off the radar and watching their customer base level off.
The prominent darknet marketplace, White House Market, has dropped bitcoin payments and now accepts monero only. The darknet marketplace administrators detailed that there was an issue with a payment processor blocking Tor exit nodes, but the full transition to monero was always planned. A number of crypto proponents have reported on the darknet marketplace, White House dropping bitcoin (BTC) payments in order to exclusively support monero (XMR). On December 28, one individual on Twitter wrote: “[One of the] largest darknet markets, White House Market, drops bitcoin support, now only....