Nearly 1 Million Bitcoins Hold Darknet Markets, Scammers and Thieves

People who are less familiar with Bitcoins and the world of cryptocurrencies often associate digital assets with crime. They see headlines about drug dealers, gun dealers and money laundering, where they use BTC or other cryptocurrencies, and assume that almost everything crypto is used for crimes. BTC first became more widely known after the outbreak of the Silk Road case. So much of the public learned about Bitcoins through crime narratives. In addition, scammers, often posing as celebrities and other important personalities, are multiplying in the crypto community itself to reach people and send them money for nothing.

Scammers earned 99,000 BTC

It’s only been a few weeks since one of the most famous hacks, when fraudsters took control of premium Twitter accounts and persuaded a lot of people to send them Bitcoins. Hackers were able to make do with only a relatively modest amount, but even so, it reinforced the idea that BTC is used mainly by criminals.

Even after the discovery of such famous deceptions, there are still plenty of unconscious victims. And they are willing to spend a lot. Blockchain’s analytics platform, Whale_alert, informed us that another significant amount in BTC was sent to fraudsters even after the hack was discovered on Twitter. It was 4.73 BTC, which was $ 47,138 at the time the transaction took place.

The analyst firm Chainalysis did a study to find out how much BTC these scammers and darknet markets are holding. The study found that criminals now have almost 1 million BTC.

The holding of illegally acquired assets is divided into several main groups. The three largest are the illegal markets, which hold 585,000 BTC, the scams that have earned 99,000 BTC, and the stolen funds, which add up to 205,000 BTC. Overall, Chainalysis estimates that darknet markets, scammers and thieves hold 892,000 BTC.

Usually, these coins target the crypto exchange. Criminals can quickly move funds through the exchanges, even if the fraud is still alive and accumulating more money. The fact that stolen funds and BTCs used for crimes are rapidly moving through stock exchanges reinforces the argument for stricter KYC laws and procedures.

Do you think that crypto exchanges should use much stricter authentication processes?

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