According to the Chainalysy Crypto 20025 Crime Report, Darknet Market (DNM) suppliers adapt their money laundering tactics. While centralized exchanges (CEX) remain the dominant liquidity method, a notable change has been towards decentralized financing protocols (DEFI).
In 2024, DEFI played an increasing role in the storage, transfer and obscure of illicit cryptography products.
The sellers of the Darknet market turn to Defi
The increased use of DEFI intervenes in the middle of close regulations on centralized exchanges. With strict, be aware that your client (KYC) and your money-breaches of money (LMA), illicit players face greater challenges when they try to withdraw. In addition, law enforcement for the world intensified its efforts, seized assets and disturbed key money laundering networks.
In response, Darknet market suppliers are increasingly moving their financial activity to decentralized platforms.
“Last year, DNM sellers sent a much higher part of their funds to DEFI. Historically,” said the report.
In terms of supplier behavior, change is largely dominated by large suppliers. Meanwhile, retail sellers, who operate on a smaller scale, hold more of their illicit gains in personal wallets, delaying the conversion to Fiat to avoid detection.
It should be noted that the change is not isolated on the Darknet markets. The ripped funds also move more and more through decentralized protocols.
“But like scams on more blockchains, in particular Ethereum, Tron and Solana, have increased, the same is true for the use of DEFI protocols,” noted the report.
Although the adoption of the challenge between Darknet sellers increases, it has not replaced centralized exchanges as the main laundering method. However, the trend is clear: the actors of incicitance extend their strategies, forcing the application agencies to develop their monitoring methods to monitor the pace of increasingly sophisticated laundering techniques.
Another interesting trend is also the transition from the assets used. Law application agencies improving their ability to follow Bitcoin (BTC) transactions, operators and suppliers on the Darknet market move to Monero (XMR) as cryptocurrency of choice.
“As international authorities have disrupted DNM, adults and young in recent years, cybercriminals and drug traffickers have learned in first hand the consequences of the management of DNMs accepting the BTC, given the inherent transparency of money. Many operators have since evolved to accept only Monero (XMR), “added Chainalysis.
Unlike BTC, which relies on a large transparent public book, Monero offers integrated confidentiality features such as ring signatures, furtive addresses and confidential transactions, which makes it almost impossible to draw the identities of the sender and the receiver.
The report also revealed that despite a probable record year for the overall income of cryptographic crime, the entries to the Darknet markets and the fraud workshops decreased in 2024. Total income from the Darknet market rose from $ 2.3 billion in 2023 to $ 2 billion in 2024.
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