Dark Web Turns to New Cryptocurrencies With Bitcoin Going Too Mainstream. Bitcoin as a digital currency has been through some tough time but this year has been the best ever for this cryptocurrency. Over the years, Bitcoin has been criticized for providing a big level of anonymity when it comes to the transactions. Many believed that people use this digital currency for making illegal transactions but in the last couple of years, things have changed.
There are still those people who believe that Bitcoin is being used for illegal activities but with the introduction of blockchain technology, every Bitcoin transaction gets recorded. Besides that, the authorities have come up with new and effective ways to track the transactions and identify people who made those transactions and because of that dark web users have opted not to use this digital currency anymore.
Instead, they turned their attention to other cryptocurrencies that are not so popular in the mainstream world. According to the analysis that has been conducted recently, more and more dark web users are using other digital currencies for which the level of anonymity protection has surpassed that provided by Bitcoin. Considering that these digital currencies are not so popular, authorities have not put a lot of effort into cracking the code behind the protection that these currencies provide their users with.
According to Shone Anstey who is one of the founders of the Blockchain Intelligence Group, only 20 percent of the transactions on the dark web have used Bitcoin which is a significant fall when compared to the year before when it was 50 percent. However, at the same time, other digital currencies such as Ethereum or Monero have been recording the increase in popularity on the dark web which was confirmed by the official from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Bitcoin operates on the principle of blockchain technology as mentioned previously. However, in order to receive any payments with Bitcoin a user needs to have a digital address which means that the authorities are able to track those transactions and arrest people when they try to convert those Bitcoins into the standard currencies. Because of that, Europol and U.S. authorities were able to shut down Hansa and AlphaBay which were the largest dark web markets for illegal activities.
The reports from those actions indicate that both of those pages used digital currencies such as Bitcoin to make transactions. Interestingly, those reports also indicate that these pages have used Monero and Ethereum much more often than Bitcoin in those transactions. One of the signs that Ethereum is getting more and more popular is the report that Chainanalysis published recently and that stated that dark web users or cyber criminals have already raised more than $225 million in this digital currency in the first eight months of this year.
Let’s be clear, Bitcoin is still very popular digital currency among the cyber criminals mostly because of the quick procedure of converting this cryptocurrency into the standard currencies. As it was announced not that long ago, Bitcoin will be getting an update and one of the aspects that will be improved will be the level of protection that this digital currency provided. Many believe that with the new update it will be much harder for criminals to use this digital currency for illegal activities which is what the authorities wanted in the first place.
Written by Vedran Ostojic
Impressive article.