Here Is The Lockdown Life & Darknets Where BTC Is Still The DNM King, The Cashaa's Stolen Coins Sent To Hydra, And Finally Cannabis Sales Surge

The Situation Looming Around The COVID- 9 Lockdown

The Covid-19 outbreak has caused a lot of disarray in the world and one thing is for sure, the use of darknet markets has surged during the past six months. Cannabis sales have skyrocketed as the dollar value of bitcoin transactions done privately has remained over $ 100 million per month while the citizens of the globe have been locked down. 

Especially after the coronavirus outbreak started to rise Darknet market (DNM) use has exploded during the last six months. Bitcoin is still the top choice for DNM vendor acceptance as data from The Block Research and 1000x Group shows. 

Explaining in a report published on August 8, 2020, the Block Research analyst Steven Zheng says bitcoin captures 98% of the 49 DNMs as the researcher surveyed. On DNMs the survey shows that monero (XMR) comes to be the second most leveraged (45%) crypto accepted. Following it Litecoin and bitcoin cash capture 29% and 12% respectively. 

As the company’s tracker monitors 15 different DNMs 1000x Group data comes a touch different. Except for Whitehouse and Monopoly Market, which accepts monero, mostly all of the markets accept BTC. 

While Darkbay Empire as well as Cannazone all accept Bitcoin, whereas they also support Litecoin and monero transactions. 

1000x Group’s DNM tracker shows that BTC is accepted by the majority of DNM vendors, similar to Steven Zheng’s data. Monero captured 65% of DNM vendor acceptance on August 11, 2020. 

According to 1000x group tracker, which measures the cryptos that are accepted as the payment method on the darknet, Litecoin commands 26.8% of the vendor acceptance on DNMs. 

How Was Cashaa Hacked?

At today’s exchange rates, the digital currency exchange Cashaa revealed it was hacked for 336 BTC worth $4.3 million on July 11, 2020. A decent portion of these coins is waiting to be peeled according to a statement from the blockchain analysis firm Cyphertrace and the chief financial analyst John Jefferies. 

The process of peeling comes to be breaking up large sums of coins to smaller fractions and thereby sending them to DNMs, deep web bitcoin mixers as well as unregulated exchanges. The dollar value of bitcoin transactions done privately has remained over $100 million per month according to 1000x Group’s data. A touch less at $95 million was the month of April, and May saw the transactions in terms of dollar valued at $149 million. Touching $137 million was July’s dollar value of private Bitcoin and the August data was till building at $86 million. 

According to Jefferies from the Cashaa hack, 50 BTC was sent to five crypto trading platforms as well as the Russian DNM Hydra. Even though it only caters to Russians, Hydra is one of the largest DNMs worldwide estimating the market captures 65% of the DNM market share. 

Explained on July 19, Jefferies says moving into the dark market Hydra and the five unique cryptocurrency exchanges are the remainder of the funds having combined with additional funds unrelated to the initial hack. 

The Scenario Of Cannabis Sale Amid COVID-19

During the Covid-19 crisis, marijuana sales swelled exponentially during the lockdowns as the Darknet market research from the Journal of Addiction Medicine showed. 

During the month of March, pot sales jumped by over 30% according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Because of the pending lockdown orders, buyers were attempting to increase stock as reported by Teodora Groshkova the researcher at the EMCDDA. 

As Groshkova’s report highlights, the cannabis buyers were possibly trying to stock up for the weeks to come, as there is just a larger group of cannabis users discovering online as the convenient distribution channel as the social contact is limited with limited means to reach out to their usual dealer. 

Small quantity retail sales spiked and wholesale purchases started to dip during these months as Groshkova noted.

These people are not so interested to get hold of this type of larger amount when the offline opportunities for cannabis resale are limited as the report reveals. They are observed to be going to have difficulty shifting these products. 

Summing It Up…

Whatever be the reason, BTC is always the king when it comes to digital currency. Bitcoin or no bitcoin, we always bring you the latest from the crypto world. So stay tuned until we bring you more fresh news on Bitcoin and the altcoins.