{"id":19856,"date":"2025-03-31T11:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=19856"},"modified":"2025-03-31T11:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:48:15","slug":"its-back-to-bitcoin-for-darknet-markets-after-moneros-binance-delisting-chainalysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=19856","title":{"rendered":"It’s Back to Bitcoin for Darknet Markets After Monero’s Binance Delisting: Chainalysis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Darknet markets are increasingly returning to bitcoin (BTC<\/a>) as their primary cryptocurrency because of rising liquidity and accessibility challenges associated with privacy-focused coins like monero (XMR<\/a>), according to Eric Jardine, cybercrime research lead at Chainalysis.<\/p>\n

“After major exchanges delisted XMR, we observed a significant increase in bitcoin inflows,” Jardine said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Reduced accessibility is steering users back toward bitcoin.”<\/p>\n

Many Western markets on the darknet \u2014 a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools \u2014 had either fully moved to monero or operated with it in parallel with bitcoin before the delistings. XMR dropped off after it was removed from major exchanges.<\/p>\n

OKX removed XMR and other privacy-focused tokens including dash (DASH) and ZCash (ZCH) at the end of 2023. Binance announced in February 2024<\/a> that it planned to de-list monero.<\/p>\n

“When a coin or token no longer meets this standard, or the industry changes, we conduct a more in-depth review and potentially delist it,” Binance said at the time.<\/p>\n

On-chain data from BitInfoCharts<\/a> shows that the daily number of monero transactions has halved from this time last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“In order to be an effective kind of medium of exchange, you need a certain amount of liquidity and a certain amount of accessibility,” Jardine said.<\/p>\n

Jardine emphasized that illicit cryptocurrency transactions represent only a minor share of total crypto activity.<\/p>\n

“Typically, illicit transactions constitute at or below 1% of total crypto activities. While addressing these issues is essential, broadly labeling crypto negatively is inaccurate and counterproductive.”<\/p>\n

Chainalysis data shows<\/a> that about 0.14% of all transactions in crypto, some $50 billion, involve illicit activity, with a rise in stablecoins as an illicit payment mechanism.<\/p>\n

The stablecoin issuers are fighting back, with the Tron-led T3 Financial Crime Unit, a group comprising of Tron, USDT-issuer Tether and TRM Labs freezing over $100 million in illict funds.<\/a><\/p>\n

Jardine also noted that law-enforcement agencies prioritize darknet markets primarily based on their scale and involvement in the fentanyl trade.<\/p>\n

Its presence significantly escalates the likelihood of a darknet market attracting law enforcement attention, he said, because fighting the drug is a priority<\/a> for international law enforcement.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Markets have sort of varying levels of sensitivity to fentanyl-related sales,” he said. “Some claim they don’t do it, then don’t police vendors; some claim they don’t do it, but then they do. Some will be selling precursor products but not finished products.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the most recent darknet market busts<\/a> was the Nemesis online market. The U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) specifically cited the market’s role in the fentanyl trade as a reason for the bust.<\/p>\n

And, as a result, OFAC sanctioned a number of crypto wallets tied to its operator, Behrouz Parsarad: 44 BTC addresses and 5 XMR wallets.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darknet markets are increasingly returning to bitcoin (BTC) as their primary cryptocurrency because of rising liquidity and accessibility challenges associated with privacy-focused coins like monero (XMR), according to Eric Jardine, cybercrime research lead at Chainalysis. “After major exchanges delisted XMR, we observed a significant increase in bitcoin inflows,” Jardine said in an interview with CoinDesk. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-19856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}