Exploring what crypto currency is preferred on the hidden wiki and dark web?
Read this guide and find out which one is the most chosen crypto for transactions and know how the crash of Cryptocurrency triggers the Crisis on the Dark Web network. So, let us read this guide and know everything in detail.
The Connection Between Cryptocurrency and Hidden Wiki
There is a connection between the Hidden Wiki and crypto currency for several reasons:
1. Popularity
The Hidden Wiki and cryptocurrencies are famous on the dark web. Crypto is the main payment method that most sites on the dark net accept. Most of the sites on the dark net sell stuff to users on the internet that they will not find on the surface web.
2. Connects you to the Crypto Wallet and Mixers
Another connection between hidden wiki and crypto is that you can find hidden onion URLs linked with a crypto wallet and mixers. This directory continuously uploads new onion links under specific categories.
3. Connects to the Informational Crypto Pages
Hidden Wiki has a category of sites that lead to informational blogs. You can go through the category to find links connected to cryptocurrency blogs. Clicking on the URL will send you to the crypto informational page.
4. Leads you to the Guide that Uses Crypto
The Hidden Wiki also helps you through its informational section. It has a blog section that is useful to many beginners and guides you about the dangers of using the dark web and how you can keep yourself safe from scammers.
5. Illegal Services
Illegal marketplaces try to advantage of the reliability of the hidden wiki to gain the trust of new users and customers. It is known that illegal services on the dark web and the hidden wiki pay multiple platforms with crypto currency if the site connects its users to their marketplace.
6. Help Hidden Wiki with Crypto
This encyclopedia is basically free to use so you will not have to pay a penny to access the links on this platform. However, you can donate money to this directory to help it continue running. Many blogs and platforms on the dark web inspire their users to contribute some funds. if possible so that they can keep the servers running and offer continuous service.
Connection Between Cryptocurrency and Dark Web
The dark markets of the dark web utilize cryptocurrency as a means of payment. this hidden corner of the internet where illegal activity abounds set a new revenue record bringing a total of $5 billion in cryptocurrency in 2024.
The connection between cryptocurrency and the dark web is fixed in the shared craving for secrecy and privacy. Cryptocurrencies, with their decentralized nature and cryptographic features, including anonymity, ease of cross-border transaction, and finality of settlement offer a level of pseudonymity that aligns with the needs of dark web users. Consequently, cryptocurrencies have become the perfect vehicle for criminals to conduct their illegal activities on black markets.
The Historical Significance of this Connection
The historical status of the relationship between cryptocurrency and the dark web cannot be overstated. It has formed the route of the cryptocurrency industry and the ecosystem of the dark web and hidden wiki.
In the early days of cryptocurrency, the dark web played a crucial role in promoting its use. Silk Road marketplace made in 2011, was one of the initial prominent platforms to smooth the transactions via Crypto. Silk Road’s fame and consequent collapse brought devotion to the potentially ill use of cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, the connection between crypto and the dark web has encouraged penetrating scrutiny from law enforcement activities and regulatory bodies all over the world. High-profile inquiries, such as the takedown of AlphaBay and Hansa Market in 2017, have uncovered the challenges establishments face in fighting illegal activities conducted via cryptocurrencies.
The Role of Crypto Currency in Hidden Wiki and Dark Web
On Hidden Wiki and the dark web cryptocurrency is the preferred means of payment. Because the crypto provides secrecy and security to buyers and sellers. The digital wallets are not associated with the user’s personal data and are used for financial transactions. That is why law enforcement can’t track the transactions and know who are the buyers and sellers.
Countless assets transferred to the dark web are considered the property of the dark web. However, these transactions are not under a nation’s government or central bank. Because these crypto transactions are pseudonymous it means that users can send and get payments without exposing their identities.
The users of Hidden Wiki and the dark web have cut back on their withdrawals to outside sources and are focusing on finding ways to spend their assets on the dark marketplaces. Users can buy and sell items and services on these marketplaces like drugs, firearms, illegal stolen goods, counterfeit, and many more.
While cryptocurrencies provide many benefits as compared to traditional payment methods including improved anonymity, transaction speeds, irreversibility, and reduced fees.
What Crypto Currency is Preferred on the Hidden Wiki and Dark Web?
The anonymous dark web marketplaces you will find on the hidden wiki directory enable illicit trade, fraud, and other serious crimes. To avoid leaving a money track that can be used in inquiries, these marketplaces depend on cryptocurrency.
As per the analysis of almost 70 dark web markets.
- 91% accepted Bitcoin
- 79% Monero
- 21% Litecoin
- <10% accept ZCash,
- <5% Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, or Dash.
However, the majority of the hidden wiki and dark web markets (69%) support two or more cryptocurrencies.
1. BTC: Bitcoin
Bitcoin isn’t just the most common crypto currency in the markets of the hidden wiki and dark web. This asset is broadly used on dark web marketplaces. Bitcoin can be used to purchase malware, drugs, illegal firearms, unlawful content, and other items on the dark web. It is used in money laundering to cover criminals’ tracks as well.
Many ransomware attackers also request that their victims pay their demanded ransoms in Bitcoin, making the payment less traceable from the get-go.
While Bitcoin is certainly a popular asset on the dark web, it has one glaring flaw: its pseudonymity. Bitcoin does not provide users full anonymity, as a Bitcoin wallet address can technically be used to track down the user’s identity. This process can be challenging but is possible nonetheless. Most cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous, not anonymous.
2. XMR: Monero
Unlike the majority of cryptos out there, Monero is a privacy coin. It means that it is specifically designed to keep user information private.
Monero doesn’t just hide names and contact details. If you conduct a transaction using Monero, your wallet address will also be kept private. Monero does this via stealth addresses; one-time wallet addresses that are disposed of once a single transaction is over. By using a different wallet address each time, it becomes incredibly difficult for a user to be tracked down.
Like Bitcoin, Monero has also been requested for payments by ransomware attackers on the hidden wiki and dark web. Some attackers have even offered to lower the requested ransom amount if the victim pays in Monero over Bitcoin. Again, this is likely due to Monero’s status as a privacy coin that can offer total anonymity.
All Monero users must use shielded addresses when trading XMR. Ring signatures are also used in Monero transactions, which shields public keys and transaction amounts.
3. LTC: Litcoin
Litecoin is very similar to Bitcoin in its design. The cryptocurrency and blockchain were created using Bitcoin’s source code. Because of this, Litecoin offers the same pseudonymity as Bitcoin. However, Litecoin can offer faster transaction times too, meaning users don’t have to wait hours for their payments or money movements to be processed and verified.
The same privacy as Bitcoin but faster? It’s not surprising that cybercriminals have adopted Litecoin as a form of payment on the dark web.
In the same Holland FinTech study mentioned previously, it was found that 21 percent of dark web platforms accept Litecoin payments. Litecoin isn’t nearly as popular among cybercriminals as Bitcoin and Monero, but its presence on illicit marketplaces is certainly quite solid.
Just a few years before this study, another was conducted by Recorded Future. Surprisingly, it was found here that Litecoin was the second-most popular crypto on dark web marketplaces. It seems that Monero has somewhat replaced Litecoin on the dark web over the past few years, likely due to its heightened privacy features.
4. ZEC: ZCash
Zcash is another popular privacy coin. Like Monero, Zcash allows users to conceal their wallet addresses when conducting transactions. But unlike Monero, Zcash gives you the choice of using a transparent, public address, or a shielded, private address. In this way, it’s sort of a semi-private cryptocurrency.
Either way, you can use Zcash to keep yourself anonymous, and this perk has caught the attention of malicious actors. It might be Zcash’s semi-private design that has made it less desirable among cybercriminals. After all, Monero is far more popular in general and offers the benefit of anonymity across the board.
5. BCH: Bitcoin Cash, ETH: Ethereum, or DASH: Dash
Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and Ethereum are also noteworthy examples of popular crypto currency among cybercriminals on the hidden wiki and dark web. In simple terms, the blockchain works with these three cryptos by scrambling transactions to make its users hard to trace and identify. Like Zcash, Ethereum, and Dash’s anonymity features are optional.
These assets are not used as often as the other examples listed here but still have a small presence on illicit platforms. We may see the growth of these cryptos in prevalence on the dark web, but other privacy coins, like Monero and Zcash, may soon replace them entirely.
Why do Criminals Use Crypto?
Cryptocurrencies are private they are not like traditional money where you send money to someone via bank transfer. In the traditional payment method person will be able to see your name on the transaction receipt. In addition, the person can also see other payment data, such as bank account numbers and sort codes, which are also held by many parties, like the businesses we have set up direct withdrawals. this isn’t completely dangerous; it indisputably discloses some of your personal information.
Meanwhile cryptocurrency confrontations this issue by hiding all user data within a transaction, except for the sender and recipient’s wallet address. Your name, wallet provider, and contact details are not displayed on the blockchain within the transaction details.
So, this provides a lot more privacy than traditional payment can. With crypto, you can hide your identity and other personal data when you move money around, connotation it’s harder for anybody to trail your actions.
Because of this added coat of privacy, cybercriminals now use cryptocurrency to move illegitimately used or stolen funds around. Maybe a malicious actor wants to buy drugs via crypto or subscribe to a ransomware-as-a-service platform. Even the funding of terrorist acts can be directed with cryptocurrency. Doing this with cryptocurrency lets the cybercriminals excuse law enforcement more successfully.
So, Crypto Currency Fuels the Hidden Wiki and Dark Web?
It becomes apparent if you think about how crypto fueled the growth and notoriety of the dark web and hidden wiki.
For many years the dark web and hidden wiki were just a group of extoric websites occasionally quite illegal. But nothing more than snooping for hackers and wide-ranging tech weirdos. Suppose you add a method to anonymously exchange money to a network that also strongly protects anonymity which is a recipe for big profits. When you bring money into anything it means that things will become bigger and more cultured.
Cryptocurrencies soup up the dark web and hidden wiki and lead to the development of huge black markets. However many of them are doing millions of dollars trade. That is fuel keeping the dark web and hidden wiki flourishing and thrusting.
The Crash of Cryptocurrency Triggers the Crisis on the Dark Web
The decline in the worth of cryptocurrencies has shaped a cash rush that is pushing many secretive exchanges to their breaking point. As per the research from security companies’ cybercriminals are observing to protect their stolen assets by moving them from cryptocurrencies to authorized currencies. It forced some prominent underground exchanges toward liquidation.
Operating on the dark web away from the snooping eyes of law administration, the exchanges let criminals make transactions and potentially launder their illegal gains by fluctuating the stolen funds from fiat cash to various cryptocurrencies. While paying the exchanges steep transaction charges for their pleasure. So, the exchanges hold a healthy combination of cryptocurrency and fiat money, without either being too seriously in demand. That, however, has transformed among the larger crash in cryptocurrency values.
The Report on the Crypto Crisis on the Dark Web
34 actors operating dark web exchanges in 2022 and found that none of them were promoting their platforms. Whereas many of the actors were still active on hacker forums, none of them were sponsoring their exchanges when many cryptocurrency values fell.
Despite operating underground and spreading business in cybercrime forums, launching an underground exchange is no simple job and requires important funds to get off the ground. As such, substituting the liquidated exchanges will be no easy task, particularly as cryptocurrency values continue to decline.
Actors have to build assets of numerous currencies and project mechanisms to receive payments on numerous platforms. They also have to market themselves to be uncovered and build a status so they will be right-hand.
The forum traffic is also confirming that the closures are probable to be continuing, if not permanent. The analysis noted that many of the exchange operators have also gone silent in cybercrime forums after years of almost daily postings to promote their services, signifying that a rebrand or relaunch is not planned.
Analyzer told Search Security that Generally, actors who run shops on the underground will endorse them often on forums, even daily, to ensure that people know about them. So, if they are not posting about them any longer, it means it is safe to say that they have departed.
With the exchanges going dark, it will be more problematic for cybercriminals to move their stolen money around. The researcher noted, however, that protectors should dodge getting too thrilled, as many of the major and most productive cybercrime groups will likely be able to continue operations unharmed.
These exchanges are possibly mostly used by less sophisticated actors, who will now be stuck without a way to exchange funds. The more advanced cybercrime groups have more intricate methods to exchange and launder assets and they will certainly find new methods to continue doing so.
The Future of Crypto Currency and the Hidden Wiki / Dark Web
You can argue that the golden age of crypto is well and actually ended. The big black markets have been shut down and the authorities are finding ways to cut through some of the technologies that are meant to protect the identities of users. Bitcoin in particular is not anonymous anymore.
Except for those who develop cryptocurrency, technology can stay ahead of those who want to negotiate the anonymity of the technology, we may get things shrink even more than they already have. It looks like the world is trying to purge the internet of anonymity entirely and the Dark Web and the hidden wiki are the reverse of this idea.
So, nobody knows who will win out in the end.
Sum Up
Conclusively here is a question comes out that the dark web and hidden wiki live without crypto currency. what you think about it let us know in the comment section.