Given the explosive growth of these markets, organizations must prioritize proactive threat monitoring. Axis Intelligence provides dark web surveillance solutions that help businesses identify leaked credentials, fraud attempts, and malware risks before they escalate. A Canadian market established in 2021, WTN offers over 9,000 products, including narcotics, fake goods, and digital services. It operates in both French and English and has built a reputation for ease-of-use.
Web3 In 2025: Where We Are, What’s Next, And What The Data Says
WeTheNorth is a Canadian market established in 2021 that also serves international users. It offers counterfeit documents, financial fraud tools, hacking and malware services. It has an active forum and community along with an extensive user vetting process.
Bitcoin Miner IREN’s AI Push Gains Momentum, Price Target Hiked 60% To $37: Canaccord
Markets like ASAP lead with BTC, XMR, LTC, and USDT, reducing fees by 20% and boosting its 7% share. In 2025, 60% of top 10 markets support multiple cryptos—XMR at 40% average, USDT at 15% in ASAP—reflecting a shift from BTC’s 80% dominance in 2023, driven by cost and privacy demands. Use tools like our “Check Status” button or darknet forums to confirm uptime—our top 10 average 92%+. Avoid trading during outages (5% risk of fund loss), checking weekly for stability. Add a VPN like NordVPN or ProtonVPN before launching Tor to mask your IP—crucial with 15% of ISPs logging darknet traffic in 2025. Opt for no-logs providers, connect to a server in a privacy-friendly country (e.g., Switzerland), and avoid free VPNs, which often leak data, enhancing your anonymity on platforms like Incognito.
Crypto Crime: How Nations & Scammers Use Cryptocurrency
Some markets have services related to cybersecurity, while others might list more controversial items. The selection depends on the marketplace, and not everything found is legal. Each of our coin data pages has a graph that shows both the current and historic price information for the coin or token.
Crypto ATMs ‘wouldn’t Exist’ Without Crime
- It contains a good selection of product listings that range over 35,000 items.
- They can be used as art, a way to share QR codes, ticketing and many more things.
- Many drug traffickers use crypto in attempts to evade law enforcement, thus facilitating the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States and other drug-related crises worldwide.
- There’s also a premium account option for users who want extra benefits.
- In Colombia, for instance, many of the vendor listings are for cocaine or Infrastructure-as-a-Service, as seen in the screenshot below.
- This operation was about protecting innocent people from predatory criminals who profit from violence, addiction, and fear.
It’s an ever-evolving ecosystem—constantly shifting, reinventing itself, and adapting. Although some of these markets prohibit certain extreme content such as violence or exploitation, most operate with very few rules beyond ensuring the security and anonymity of their users. Apart from the dark web markets that are operating online today, some raided platforms influenced many markets. In 2019, there were approximately 8,400 active sites on the dark web, selling thousands of products and services daily.
Our team searched the dark web and put together a list of the most active dark web marketplaces in order to assist you in monitoring illegal trade of products, cybercrime activity, and dark web trends in the dark web space. Abacus Market was launched in 2021 and now lists over 40,000 illicit goods, including hacking tools, counterfeit documents, and listings for drugs. In 2024, it recorded on-chain revenue of $43.3 million, a 183 per cent increase, driven by vendor migrations post-shutdown of competitors, according to Chainalysis’ 2023 market report Darknet revenue in 2023. Darknet vendors are also getting smarter about how they handle their money. Historically, they’d just cash out at centralized exchanges (CEXs), which are like regular banks for crypto.
What’s The Benefit Of Escrow Systems?
Its 28,000+ listings don’t match giants like Alphabay, but its quality focus delivers a polished experience—top sellers like “ElitePharma” and “CodeMaster” hit 99% ratings, offering rare finds you won’t see elsewhere. That premium angle means prices run 10–15% above high-volume markets, but users say the goods are worth it. The platform’s layout catches attention, built to suit both newbies and pros. Search filters let you sort by category, price, seller rating, or shipping source, while live deal tracking and detailed seller profiles—averaging 4.8/5 from 50,000+ reviews—keep things open. Abacus sets a high bar for sellers, demanding a 90% trust score to stay active, which holds scams under 2%, a rare feat in this game. With dual-currency support, strong uptime, and a broad catalog, it’s a model for what a leading darknet market can be in 2025, winning nods from users for its dependability and range.
Russian Darknet Markets Lead Crypto Drug Trade With $17 Billion Revenue Surge
It’s recommended not to use new alternative links as they could just be planned exit scams. Vice City Market is a new and cutting-edge dark web marketplace where you can find a range of products and vendors at an affordable price (compared to the damage they do to the victims). To access this marketplace, you must register, but before that, you must verify yourself as a human by passing a CAPTCHA test. This guide outlines different ways of safely accessing dark web stores and the list of reliable dark web marketplaces you can consider visiting in 2025 for research and monitoring purposes. Decentralized messaging apps let vendors switch platforms easily and maintain privacy.
- In addition to providing criminals with a platform to conduct transactions, Parsarad laundered virtual currencies for narcotics traffickers and cybercriminals active on Nemesis.
- Until 2012, there is only one active market, namely Silk Road market, and hence no multihomer activity.
- Alright, let’s get into the meat of it—the darknet markets that are ruling 2025.
- The platform’s popularity continues to grow, attracting both new and returning customers.
The only difference here is that the precursor purchases are made (and traced) in cryptocurrency. In order to test that theory, we compared on-chain flows to our identified addresses to monthly fentanyl-related drug seizures at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders, using data from the U.S. More recently, on April 14, 2023, OFAC and the DOJ sanctioned and charged individuals and entities who used cryptocurrency addresses to sell illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology (WSBT) and Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech (SXPC) are two of these organizations. Based in China, these two chemical labs sold fentanyl precursors to brokers in Latin America, who sold them to drug cartels in Mexico. The drug cartels then created fentanyl products and shipped them into the U.S.
Vice City Tightens Vendor Policies
While it received a relatively small share of large retail purchases as shown in the previous chart, Abacus Market is one such example. Though many customers are concentrated in Australia, Abacus has vendors and customers around the world, including the United States. Lin allegedly made millions from operating Incognito Market, which took a 5% cut of every sale. However, if we’re being honest, the majority of activity on darknet markets involves illegal or heavily regulated items. A 2020 study found that almost 57% of sites on the Tor network hosted some form of illegal content.
Sanctioned entities, terrorist organizations, and ransomware groups have shifted tactics in response to global crackdowns, embracing new technologies and methods to obscure their activities. This adaptability underscores the need for constant evolution in enforcement strategies and international cooperation. The arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, in August 2024 triggered a notable shift in the operational dynamics of the platform’s drug vendors. This incident also marked the never-before-seen attempt of its administrator, Pharoah (arrested in May 2024 and revealed to be 23 year-old Taiwanese national Rui-Siang Lin), to extort the marketplace’s users. China-based precursor manufacturers mark the beginning of the synthetic drug supply chain.
In 2021, these malicious actors and international drug dealers made $3.1 billion in crypto through these dark web sources, but in 2022, they only made approximately $1.5 billion. Another darknet market known for facilitating fentanyl sales to the United States was Canada-based AlphaBay. A once-sizable illicit enterprise that began in 2014, AlphaBay was closed by authorities in 2017 and then reopened in 2021. The last version of the market operated until February of 2023, and a month after that closure, a former AlphaBay vendor pled guilty to distributing fentanyl that caused fatal overdoses in Oregon. ASAP Market focuses on digital goods, software, and security tools, making it one of the few markets without illegal drug sales. HSI is a worldwide law enforcement leader in Darknet and other cyber-related criminal investigations.
Another reason the legislation didn’t pass was that lawmakers thought the federal government should take the lead in regulating cryptocurrency, Cunningham says. Now that Trump is going to take office again next week, he fears the federal government won’t do much to police the industry and thinks the General Assembly may need to take action. Last year in Illinois, legislators sought to serve as a check on operators of crypto ATMs with legislation that included a requirement to register kiosks with the state. The Trump-influenced Republican platform promises to embrace and deregulate the industry. Government watchdogs warn that Trump, as president, could push for regulations that favor himself and his sons, a major financial conflict of interest, they say.
From the last quarter of 2013, U2U-only sellers become the largest category of sellers and remains as the largest throughout the rest of the observation period. The large number of U2U-only sellers is in accordance with previous results that showed that the trading volume in the U2U network is significantly larger than that of DWMs13 (also see Supplementary Information Figure S8). Our classification shows that the number of sellers is significantly smaller than the number of buyers, as shown in Figs. The number of actors in the ecosystem is affected by several factors, especially market closures. Notably, the number of buyers and sellers significantly drops after the operation Bayonet in the last quarter of 2017, which shut down AlphaBay and Hansa markets, causing a major shock in the ecosystem34.
Saheed Aremu passionately advocates for digital privacy and cybersecurity in the modern digital age. As one of PrivacySavvy’s resident VPN experts, he guides readers on protecting their online information and anonymity. Saheed earned his degree in Technology and Ethics from the University of Lagos in Nigeria. Since then, he has dedicated his career to writing extensively about crucial infosec, data privacy, and cybersecurity topics. When he’s not empowering PrivacySavvy’s readers to take control of their online security, Saheed enjoys distance running, playing chess, and exploring the latest open-source software advancements.
