Bitcoin Won't Be the Dark Web's Top Cryptocurrency For Long (cnet.com)

Bitcoin has essentially become the poster child for cryptocurrencies, and that's a problem for cybercriminals dealing on the dark web. From a report: Researchers from Recorded Future, a threat intelligence company, looked through 150 of the dark web's top marketplaces and forums and found that bitcoin's boom is driving shady characters away from the cryptocurrency. The rise of bitcoin has brought cryptocurrency -- digital alternatives to government-issued money -- to the mainstream, enticing people who are looking to get rich quick. Last December, bitcoin hit its all-time high at nearly $20,000, but it has since slumped and as of Thursday is trading at a little over the $8,000 mark. But before it was a massive investment that millionaires bought, it was the dark web's currency of choice, thanks to its decentralized and anonymous structure.

Comments

Nothing to do with transaction fee..

[ZiakII]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with transaction fee costing anywhere from $5 to $50 in the past 3 months.

Re:Nothing to do with transaction fee..

[higuita]

THIS!!

also, with the value always climbing, everyone wanted to keep the bitcoins for a few more weeks, so they value would increase... now they do not want to sell because they are probably losing money and spend it is still to expensive

Not Anonymous

[XXongo]

"...the dark web's currency of choice, thanks to its decentralized and anonymous structure."

Decentralized, yes, anonymous... not quite so much.

Every single transaction of bitcoin is recorded, and the record stored in the blockchain. It's "anonymous" nature relies on you keeping your bitcoin wallet isolated from your identity. Which may be possible. Or, with enough sorting through transactions and linking transactions to actual individuals, may not be.

Re:Not Anonymous

[MikeDataLink]

Or, with enough sorting through transactions and linking transactions to actual individuals, may not be.

THIS! People think cryptocurrency is a way to trade money secretly and anonymously. And it can be, but the fact remains that if you use the same wallet over and over and don't take precautions to remain secret you will be found.

This is no different that the drug dealer who gets caught by the IRS for owning 20 Ferrari's and only reporting 10K of income. It takes work to remain anonymous and launder your money.

Re:Not Anonymous

[mysidia]

And it can be, but the fact remains that if you use the same wallet over and over and don't take precautions to remain secret you will be found.

Yeah.... that's what I expect will eventually drive certain groups to coins such as AEON and MONERO; which conceals what the address is that receives coins; You need a wallet's View-Key to even see what the balance of a particular wallet is..... whereas with Bitcoin; you can see all the transactions related to any wallet, and you can see the balance of any wallet -- It's also become so popular that some Web-based services have emerged where you can simply search a specified Wallet ID and see its balance PLUS all the transactions that sent coin value to that wallet ID.

Re:Not Anonymous

[AHuxley]

Re 'why are cyber criminals still not in jail?"
None of the really smart law enforcement want to tell the other side or their own corrupt staff the "how" of collect it all.
Law enforcement like to tell the media that they gave a bad person a million US$ and watched the money move around the bad banking world.
Not that collect it all had the crypto to all their banks in real time for the past decades.
Governments like to map out all the bad people, see who has skills, who is evil, who is political, who is greedy, sloppy.
The clandestine services might like to turn some into support for their new "freedom fighters" i.e. another Iran Contra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...–Contra_affair.
Once a group has the support of the US clandestine services, no "cyber criminals" in that group get investigated, none go to jail while the US mission to support some "freedom fighters" is productive.

The other aspect is that US and UK law enforcement cannot trust their own investigators not to talk/sell information to lawyers, human rights groups, politicians, the media, criminals, their cult, their faith, as a dual citizen be totally loyal to another nation.
Too many bad people have been given security clearances in the police, gov, mil, security services to allow for "illicit proceeds" to be tracked without such efforts been discovered and methods sold/goven away to the very people been investigated. The police and mil in many once secure nations are now full of staff with political consideration and staff that have advanced under "political correctness". They are not loyal, criminal or will always support another faith, a criminal group, another nation.
Such staff with clearances cant be trusted not to report back to their cult, faith. another government, criminals.
So few in the police, mil, clandestine services really what to show what ability they have, even to law enforcement as generations of security cleared staff cant be trusted. The politics of an agency head has reduced the security clearance level to some political reward that is handed out to political party members.
Bad political people have had total US law enforcement oversight in the USA for decades only due to politcal party considerations.
Is the US gov doing what it did to the phone system to blockchain? Yes but they don't want the world to know what the police can do and stop interesting people trusting traceable blockchains.
"U.S. secretly tracked billions of calls for decades" (April 7, 2015)
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
Some effort was put into voice prints, phone collect it all. The same went into blockchain.
The NSA and GCHQ are watching. If for example some Irish groups spin up US funding for Irish politics the SAS will be ready to for such transactions.
Until then its just all about collect it all, the over time, the new upgrades to the security services, lots of US/UK contractors who see money on the table.
Nobody wants to tell the bad people they are all been watched 24/7 and that their banking crypto to and from the blockchain is junk.blockchain Let the bad people keep on trusting their banks and making crypto mistakes, their criminal networks just become more visible to investigations.
Why did so many IMSI-catcher like systems get used? Police cant trust telco workers, the legal system not to give away their work to the bad people.
Its the same with banking crypto, blockchain tracking. Its been used to track people, but nobody has to know about it.

Clearly a shill for Dogecoin

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Bitcoin Won't Be the Dark Web's Top Cryptocurrency For Long

Clearly, the author is a shill for Dogecoin.

bitcoin always sucked

[NynexNinja]

Anyone who has spent even a small amount of time looking into crypto-currencies would know that Bitcoin is the most traceable, least anonymous, highest priced, transaction fees are super high, half the time it takes multiple hours for the transaction to go through, if at all. Anyone who wants real anonymous transactions would think about using Monero, or something like it.

Markets are crashing, tulip farms burning

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, you're going to be regulated.

In China they're executing bitcoin traders.

It's a thing.

Re:Markets are crashing, tulip farms burning

[MrL0G1C]

I checked, it's not a thing.

I could find no mention of any executions.
http://fortune.com/2018/01/17/...

Don't Worry Dark Webbers!

[PopeRatzo]

The price of Bitcoin is less than 1/2 of what it was at the beginning of the year. And falling. At this rate, it will soon be cheap enough for you to use, once again, to pay for heroin, weapons, human slaves and contract murders. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure you'll be OK using personal checks..

Stop misleading people!

[duke_cheetah2003]

thanks to its decentralized and anonymous structure.

Inaccurate. It's the exact opposite of anonymous. Every transaction is recorded, from the beginning of bitcoin's existence.

Only one answer...

[internet-redstar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Monero

[ArchieBunker]

Maybe you should read up on Monero. It was designed to be anonymous.