advertisement

Bitcoin Spent On Illicit Activity Could Hit $1 Billion This Year

Bitcoin | Cryptocurrency | Illegal activity

According to Chainanalysis’s latest research, the amount of bitcoin (BTC) spent on illegal transactions this year could purportedly hit a record high of $1 billion, despite the ratio of illegal to legal transactions shrinking, according to a report by Bloomberg on July 1.

The report suggests that around $515 million worth of BTC (total flat value) has been spent on illegal activity so far this year and the figure is likely to double to $1 billion, by the year-end. Though a decline has also been observed in the amount of BTC spent on illegal services as opposed to legal ones

Hannah Curtis, Chananalysis executive Hannah adds that just 1% of BTC activity this year is illegal activity, which is down from 7% in 2012. The report further adds that the $515 million spent on illegal activities are purportedly transacted on the dark web, a small subsection of the deep web, which is in turn subsection of the internet that doesn’t appear in search engines (e.g. Google).

“Hydra” is reportedly the largest illegal dark web marketplace for spending BTC. BTC has been a hot favorite cryptocurrency for such marketplace, Monero (XRM) comes in second, as per the report. Notably, these markets are often involved in the distribution of drugs and/or illegal pornography.

Earlier in May, FBI seized DeepDotWeb, a comparison search system and news site about dark web markets, for allegedly being involved in money laundering. The police of five countries arrested the alleged operators, including two Israelis and moderators in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The encapturing was part of a sweeping international raid that also entailed taking down the .com and .onion sites, replacing them with notices of seizure. The said websites gained traction from the black market when the prominence of the larger dark web sites like Silk Road was disintegrated by the government crackdowns.

Read more:British Regulator Plans a Potential Ban Of Crypto CFDs For Retail Investors

Image Source – Pixabay.com

Get Latest Cryptocurrency And Bitcoin News

Signup this form below to get latest Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin news, directly in your mailbox

Note:

Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.