By any measure, illicit activity is only a tiny slice of the overall crypto pie. But on the dark web, the drug market that uses only cryptocurrency is alive and well. PaymentsWeek, presented by Circle:
It’s a website that sells products. Just like on Amazon, the products have customer reviews. “Was the harshest tar I’ve ever smoked. I’m never using this vendor again,” grumbled one customer. Another: “Nice big rocks.” A third: “F#cking fire.” One more: “Quality BTH, very strong, great for smoking and shooting.”
It’s also true that cryptocurrency is generally easier to trace than cash , which means that when people use bitcoin for shady purposes, law enforcement is more likely to catch them. Saying “crypto is for crooks” is one of the oldest misconceptions in the space. This has long been debunked. It’s classic “That said, CoinDesk’s “Payments Week” is exploring the various ways that cryptocurrencies are actually being used to pay for goods and services.
Then there’s the darker stuff. “Hit men sites are still prolific,” said Ormsby, adding that these are usually scams. Here’s how it works, as Ormsby describes it: You pay upfront to ask a hit man to kill someone, but then he takes your crypto and he bails. “What recourse does the guy have? The hit man has no incentive to carry out the murder,” said Ormsby. “The fake hit men, they take in lots of money.
Just like on Amazon, drug vendors have star ratings that users can see. “They depend on repeat customers,” explains Ormsby. “They don’t want to sell bad drugs once, and then [the customer] never comes back and tells all their friends. They do their best to live up to their reputation.” And as for how vendors can broadcast their “reputation” without fear of exposure? “Tor is a complete privacy browser,” said Ormsby, referring to the anonymous browser used to access the dark markets.
So how common are privacy coins compared to bitcoin? It’s a tricky question that still puzzles the experts. “It’s a complicated ecosystem that we’re throwing our heads together to try to figure out,” said Grauer. She adds that ChainAnalysis currently has R&D efforts underway involving monero, but she’s not yet allowed to share any details.First, it’s true that the amount of illicit activity from cryptocurrency is a tiny slice of the overall pie.
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