Thread by @afungibleX

The use of #Monero is darknet markets in often overblown.

The true picture with reasons below 👇..

21 points..

Some statistics on darkweb activity:

1. ~2.5M people use TOR browser everyday.

2. There are ~76,000 TOR sites incl. copies (18K being original) as of Dec' 20

3. Most sold goods are CC, bank acct, drugs, voterID/ passport, employee logins, organs, whistleblower

Cont..🧵

4. As per #Chainalysis, Darknet market set a new revenue record of $2.1 Billion in 2021.

5. Hydra, a market that serves on Russian-speaking countries only, was the largest darknet market in 2020 accounting 75% of darknet (crypto) market share.

Cont..🧵

6. The top 10 countries by total #crypto transaction volume flowing through darknet (Dec' 2020) were:

1. Russia: $288M
2. USA: $179M
3. Ukraine: $98M
4. China: $87M
5. UK: $56M
6. Venezuela: $55M
7. Vietnam: $49M
8. Turkey: $45M
9. India: $42M
10: Germany: $41M

Cont..🧵

7. Bitcoin was most used in darknet markets until about 2021.

8. CyberCrime with the help of Chainalysis used to take down markets by tracking (non-private) #Bitcoin like transactions and IP addresses of users. This made markets focus on OPSEC more strictly.

Cont..🧵

9. By 2022, AlphaBay emerged from its ashes (it was taken down in 2017). Its now (one of the) biggest markets, strictly allowing only #Monero

10. Most are now following strict OPSEC in both transaction & infrastructure security. Mature market are moving to privacy coins

Cont.🧵

11. It is interesting to note, markets also offer #ZCash, #Dash, #Verge alongside #Monero. Why one might ask?

It is part of customer's and their OPSEC and a method of deception & "double crossing", a necessity, so as to NOT bring #Monero into the limelight.

Cont.🧵

12. Most of the top 10 countries having share in darknet find it HARD to get access to #Monero.

13. With regulations, #Monero will become harder to get access to. However, technology (atomic swaps, non-KYC swaps) may overturn this limitation into the future.

Cont..🧵

14. The transaction volume of #Monero has declined since hardfork and moreso, in 2022, in spite of growth across darknet activity. What does this indicate?

Cont..🧵

15. Even though the use of #Monero is expanding across the darknet, it is not yet "too promising".

All we know is.. there are 15,000 tx (on average) done in a day, we can safely assume that 50% is darknet, while 30% is clearnet and 20% is bot activity.

Cont..🧵

16. 50% of 15,000 = 7,500 tx with #Monero is a very small number for something as big as darknet, irrespective of actual monetary value.

17. The conclusion is #Monero has "not yet" taken over the darknet. It has a LONG WAY to go.

Cont..🧵

<Conclusion> So, what might make #Monero take over darknet in the future?

18. Availability: It must be easy to buy/sell anywhere. This includes the likes of wallet providers, swaps and both KYC and non-KYC exchanges.

Cont..🧵

19. Multisignature: Monero need to mature in the use of Multisig clients. People PREFER multisig feature to not be scammed out. Its not user friendly yet.

20. Organic growth: #Monero is stuck in $150 range. The longer it stays in this price range the better for darknet

Cont..🧵

21. And last, we can presume #Monero reigns in darknet when the transaction count is "consistently" in 6 digits. For this we are talking abt a few years at least.

Until then, #Monero has not claimed the darknet.