Which coin dominates the darknet market space? Surprisingly, it’s not Monero
An interesting development in cryptocurrency-based darknet markets bewildered the industry last year when imprisoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht sold his first NFT for $6.2 Million to fund his release. Silk Road was one of the first and biggest darknet marketplaces to have surfaced last decade before Ulbricht was arrested in 2013. Even as Silk Road might have ceased operations, a plethora of similar marketplaces have since surfaced on the darknet to cater to numerous, mostly illegal, needs worldwide.
In fact, a recent report by Chainalysis has found that darknet revenue shot up to $2.1 billion in 2021, a substantial raise from the $1.7 billion that was bagged in 2020. More interestingly, this is after a number of marketplaces went bust during this time, signaling that consolidation and competition in the sector are on a rise.
Source: Chainalysis
According to Chainlaysis, the bulk of this revenue, $1.8 billion to be precise, was generated through drug-focused marketplaces, while some $300 million were raked in by fraud shops that sell anything from stolen logins, credit cards, exploit kits to even fake Covid-19 vaccine certificates. However, five fraud shops and 13 drug-focused markets also stopped operations during this time.
Source: Chainalysis
The report further found that contrary to the revenue, the number of drug-related transactions and active users has also fallen drastically in the previous few years. For instance, transactions fell from 11.7 million in 2016 to just 3.7 million this year, while active users shrunk from almost 1.7 million to 1.2 million, even as drug market revenue growth averaged 35.7 percent per year during this time.
This is possibly due to the maturity of the crypto drug market, as the average
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