Managers and sellers on Dark Web Marketplaces had a better 2023 than the previous year, with an estimated $ 1.7 billion on cryptocurrency based income, according to new data from chains salysis.
The Blockchain Analysis Company studied cryptocurrency flows of these underground market places and fraud stores in the past year.
The income increase came for industry after a scorching 2022 after the largest player, Hydra, was closed by the German authorities.
Instead, Mega DarkNet now leads the peloton with more than half a billion dollars in crypto intake, followed by Kraken Market and Blacksprut.
In general, however, the sector is somewhat fragmented from the days that Silk Road, Alphabay, Wall Street Market and Hydra de Roost ruled. Nowadays, no player is dominant like these market places were before their Takedown, where managers prefer to specialize in certain types of goods and services.
“Over the years, some markets have developed a robust catalog of illegal services such as money laundering, Fiat-off disaster and products that make Cyber-criminal activities possible, such as ransomware and malware attacks. Such a advanced darknet market, Hydra offered that and more, chain allysis said.
“On the other hand, it seems that today’s DarkNet markets largely serve specific niches and have organized themselves individually in unique criminal functions, which we have determined when investigating the origin points for the inflow of Darknet Market last year.”
These functions are:
- Cyber crime with regard to ransomware, malware, stolen funds and other types of cyber crime. It can include the sale of root -kits, access to personally identifiable information (PII) and off -disaster for stolen funds
- Sourcing and delivery of medicines: selling drugs to suppliers at other DarkNet -Markten
- Other illegal money laundering/buying: transfers to DarkNet markets to cover up activities at the chain or to buy illegal products
- REST-WORLD Drug Exchange: Drug purchases made on DarkNet markets that serve a global customer base
- Russian serving drug exchange: Drug purchases done by Russian customers
- Western targeted drug exchange: Drug purchases made by customers in the US and Western Europe
Chainalysis also noted that some markets openly advertise their wares in Russia, with gigantic 3D Billboards (Kraken Market) and QR codes on metro trains (Mega DarkNet Market).
It added that many fraud stores increasingly offer external crypto payment processors such as UAPs through API calls, as a way to lower their own costs, to improve operational efficiency and to increase security.