Topic: 78щ7 (Read 459 times)

For a long time I did not come across news about the next closure of the darknet marketplace. This time the news came from Europe, where the German police arrested the servers of the Hydra marketplace.

The news is here: https://www.bka.de/DE/Presse/Listenseite_Pressemitteilungen/2022/Presse2022/220405_PM_IllegalerDarknetMarktplatz.html

The corresponding banner is already hanging on the Hydra website:



In addition to servers, 543 BTC were also confiscated.

Not a bad blow to darknet trading given that Hydra was a significant marketplace, for example Chainalysis in its report indicated that the Hydra marketplace accounted for a large number of transactions:



Full report here: Geographic Distinctions in Crypto Darknet Market Activity

Another darknet marketplace fell as a result of a special operation by the German police. This time, the DarkMarket site was closed.

At the moment, it was the largest darknet platform. It was used by more than 500 00 users, and almost 2.5 thousand sellers offered their goods and services.

The most popular ones were malware, drugs, anonymous SIM cards, fake fiat, and so on. As a result of a special operation, the operator of this site was detained and 20 servers, which were located in the countries of the former USSR, were closed.

The special operation also took part of the police from America, Australia, Great Britain, Denmark, Moldova, USA, Ukraine and Switzerland. And of course, after the organizer and the servers slammed, the law enforcement officers now have infa about the buyers and sellers who were spinning on this site.

Sources:
- https://forklog.com/v-germanii-zakryli-krupnejshij-v-mire-darknet-marketplejs-darkmarket/
- https://gstko.justiz.rlp.de/de/startseite/detail/news/News/detail/grosser-ermittlungserfolg-von-generalstaatsanwaltschaft-koblenz-und-zentraler-kriminalinspektion-olde/

This is the same favorite line of attack on bitcoin that governments use to curb the spread of bitcoin and its total adoption in the world.

The percentage of illegal transactions with bitcoin is much less than the percentage of illegal transactions with fiat. And when it comes to drug deals, it's just a drop in the bucket. Double standards are evident. And it would be better if governments threw these forces to fight illegal operations in real life than on the Internet.

I think when central banks introduce their digital currencies, the negative towards Bitcoin will only intensify.

This thread is very interesting, when we talk about the darkweb we all tend to imagine bad things, because it is the first thing we think of, but I think this has decreased in influence because what is ruling is the Mariana Web, which is a much more powerful network deeper than the darkweb and I think that all the higher security protocols have gone there, the truth is that this type of topic catches my attention, but seeing that all this is a consequence of a great effort for things as bad as child pornography and other crimes I agree that they be dismantled, the bad thing is that sometimes other types of businesses can fall that are not really bad.

Whoa, all these news goes to show that no one really can be able to cover up their tracks no matter what they are trying to do. There will always going to be a way for the government to catch you if they are ready for you. If they haven’t been caught yet, it’s just because the government is yet to know about them, but when the government finds out, they are always going to pop  whoever it is whenever they are ready and they really want to do it.

No one can really cover up their tracks by doing what is wrong.  There was a time when I used to think that those on the dark web are invisible, but all these as of recent goes to show that they can always be busted by the government. Even cryptocurrency will not be able to save them.

I think a question that needs to be raised is this ==> How many of these sites are "Honey traps"? We know the 3Letter Agencies are running DarkNet sites and Exit nodes on Tor to catch more people... but we do not know which sites they are running.

I think it is safe to say.. that any site that offers illegal activities.. are not safe... and people should know that it is just a question of time, before the law enforcement agencies find a way to infiltrate them.. or pressurize the owner to give up the protected data. 

Good thread OP, for educational purposes. Hahaha. This topic should be stickied somewhere in my opinion.


OR, the technology available is also making it possible for the inefficient to be more efficient, creating new markets. Simply an evolution of "a market" perhaps?


Or the mysterious closure of BitMixer.

Funny how false that 'reputation' in the first part of the opening 'Conclusion' is - well to be exact how biased people are, who think that 'reputation' is true.

Even the 2nd paragraph points out how incorrect it is, when it states that Bitcoin is used for only 1% to 7% of those markets.

i.e. it's a small minority use.

Bitcoin also has the obvious tracking available in it's public ledger, that clearly those against Bitcoin will never concede to be true.

When Governments and Financial institutions use such arguments against Bitcoin, they are clearly showing that they are afraid of people using Bitcoin as a replacement for their financial control, it has nothing to do with what it is used for.

Heck, fiat has been used for way more illicit activities for centuries, and even currently way more than Bitcoin.
You don't hear of Governments taking action to completely stop the use of fiat because of that ...

Trade on darknet markets and if owners of darknet market are arrested like Silk Road, all accounts have trades on it will be seized by governments. It is on the side of cyber security agency to trace and arrest those people whom run darknet markets. If they fail to find and arrest those people, they can not seize any bitcoin wallet.

How exchange as Binance, Bitmex be able to detect if bitcoin is deposited on their exchanges are from darknet (new bitcoin and old bitcoin)? Can they detect those bitcoin flows quickly?

There can't be an equilibrium between freedom and legality. It's either freedom or regulation - there is no middle way available! You have rightly mentioned that a lot of users are sitting in the extreme side because they are the early adopters and most probably sitting on thousands of bitcoins which they had purchsed in cents. So they have a reason for supporting freedom over regulation. But if we really want to see mass adoption, regulation is the most needed thing on bitcoin market!

Interesting list. Looks like the intel work against crypto criminality has been stronger than ever before in the past few years. There definitely is a little fight between the wish for complete freedom and the one for proper and strong regulation in the industry as a fight against illicit activity. Meanwhile, illegality will always find its spot - or a breach somewhere they could profit of. Here's something that is so sharply double-edged:


I'm kinda afraid the development of P2P stuff will be halted and possibly even banned by authorities at one point. For them, it gets even worse than mixers being considered suspicious activity. The answer to OP's question about what awaits the darknet is that peer-to-peer markets and platforms will be on a big growth in a matter of years imo. That's because you sometimes get to have a freedom you usually aren't supposed to have, but there also are some people out there who'd just rather have no intermediaries. You get to exchange millions of bucks from one digital currency to another without anyone necessarily knowing who you are. You get to keep alive a platform even if the creator of it gets a life sentence. Should that be a thing?

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I guess we have to decide what we want: complete freedom or regulations. A way in the middle seems impossible. I have a feeling a lot of more experienced and privacy-oriented Bitcoin users are sitting in the first kind of extremity, where they want to be free to do whatever they like and are strongly against seizing websites, platforms etc. It then becomes an issue when you see that illegal marketplaces are popping up every now and then though, so how exactly do we make it fair to everyone so that there is an equilibrum between freedom and legality?

If you want to expand your thread to Bitcoin mixers, you can get one Bestmixer.io. The shutdown of Bestmixer.io gave a reason for BitBlender.io -- that used to be a big and trusted mixer, to make a scam exit. They blamed on the risk of shutdown from Europol and run away with customers' fund.


Bestmixer seized by police for washing $200 million in tainted cryptocurrency clean
BestMixer.io taken offline / seized
BestMixer is gone, seized by the Financial Crime Investigation

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