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criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin because of how easy it is to track bitcoin transfers. If any of their bitcoin transfers ever tou

criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin because of how easy it is to track bitcoin transfers. If any of their bitcoin transfers ever touches a KYC wallet they are screwed; until taproot gets activated for bitcoin it requires a ton of work to truly stay anonymous

ryanlol 5y ago
> criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin This is speculation with very little connection to reality. If you actually go on crime forums you will see that privacy coins are not as widely used as you might think.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. If we're talking bigger fish it's speculation that they prefer cryptocurrency over traditional assets or cash in the first place. Follow the money and it often leads you to illegal activity. Banks like HSBC know all about laundering drug money and enabling scams. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    > As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. This is not true. A few big markets have switched, not “all”. Besides drug markets, all the conventional cybercrime markets and forums still run on bitcoin.
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      The vast majority of goods sold in those markets is just drugs. Though admittedly I'm not a criminal and don't know anything about the more evil corners of the dark web. Can you name a few of those "conventional" crime markets? I'm curious to know.
      - ryanlol 5y ago
        Exploit.in, verified, maza, xss. Loads of public runet forums, english language crime forums like darkode have all died but the russian forums welcome english speakers. Fraud shops like unicc, ferum, slilpp move more money than darknet drug markets and primarily use BTC or LTC (I don’t think any accept XMR) Hydra, the biggest darknet drug market still doesn’t accept monero. Of course it would make sense for all of these people to be using monero, just like the efficient market hypothesis makes sense.
        trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        Cheers! Hard to say what's the biggest shadow market of course but afaik WHM is the largest one for drugs and they only accept Monero. You're right, Bitcoin is still popular in the Russian forums, but that's at least partly because it's easier to cash it out anonymously over there. Lots of services that let you exchange your BTC for cash and my guess is the remaining coins just go through tumblers until they're clean. https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-giant-white-house-market-drops-bitcoin-supports-monero-payments-only/ https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-giant-white-house-market-dr...
        ryanlol 5y ago
        FWIW Hydra is vastly bigger drug market than WHM.

ryanlol 5y ago

> criminals tend to prefer privacy coins like monero over bitcoin This is speculation with very little connection to reality. If you actually go on crime forums you will see that privacy coins are not as widely used as you might think.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. If we're talking bigger fish it's speculation that they prefer cryptocurrency over traditional assets or cash in the first place. Follow the money and it often leads you to illegal activity. Banks like HSBC know all about laundering drug money and enabling scams. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...
- ryanlol 5y ago
  > As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. This is not true. A few big markets have switched, not “all”. Besides drug markets, all the conventional cybercrime markets and forums still run on bitcoin.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    The vast majority of goods sold in those markets is just drugs. Though admittedly I'm not a criminal and don't know anything about the more evil corners of the dark web. Can you name a few of those "conventional" crime markets? I'm curious to know.
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      Exploit.in, verified, maza, xss. Loads of public runet forums, english language crime forums like darkode have all died but the russian forums welcome english speakers. Fraud shops like unicc, ferum, slilpp move more money than darknet drug markets and primarily use BTC or LTC (I don’t think any accept XMR) Hydra, the biggest darknet drug market still doesn’t accept monero. Of course it would make sense for all of these people to be using monero, just like the efficient market hypothesis makes sense.
      - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        Cheers! Hard to say what's the biggest shadow market of course but afaik WHM is the largest one for drugs and they only accept Monero. You're right, Bitcoin is still popular in the Russian forums, but that's at least partly because it's easier to cash it out anonymously over there. Lots of services that let you exchange your BTC for cash and my guess is the remaining coins just go through tumblers until they're clean. https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-giant-white-house-market-drops-bitcoin-supports-monero-payments-only/ https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-giant-white-house-market-dr...
        ryanlol 5y ago
        FWIW Hydra is vastly bigger drug market than WHM.