Monero sits as one of the best options for users to use on the darknet if they want to keep their business 100% anonymous. Despite some past code flaws, the virtually untraceable token has gained value consistently and still sits in the top 30 most valuable cryptocurrencies. Darknet users may be happy to see that the coin survives crypto winter while other coins have plummeted. Here’s what’s happening with Monero (XMR)
XMR Performance Takes The Cake
Over the last few years, more darknet users have moved to the privacy coin that beats all others. Although alternative options such as Z-coin have rivaled the token, the baked-in anonymity operations of Monero make it a favorite. Its growth coincides with the fact that more and more criminals were traced and captured due to alternative cryptocurrencies using an open-ledger system.
Instead, Monero uses a “ring signature,” where there is an automated mix of user transactions and even the value among other transactions. In addition, the ledger is not visible without a private key, making it impossible to identify the source or target of each transaction. As a result, many Darknet Vendors and Darknet Markets opted for XMR payments only. This inevitably increases the use of Monero.
Since the token turned heads in 2016, it’s multiplied by over 2700% with an ATH of $483.70. In 2023, there is still an average 24-hour trading volume of $40,000,000 to $60,000,000.
In 2022, you may have expected the token to fall drastically due to two major issues. We ran into a crypto winter where even Bitcoins price dropped by nearly 70%, and the Darknet World took a major hit as Hydra Market was seized. This caused a nearly 50% darknet revenue decrease. However, Monero managed to stay stronger than others with a mere 40.6% price decrease.
We Don’t Do That Here: Exchanges
As governments around the world push for regulations and similar, they haven’t been a fan of the privacy token. With tightened regulations, many exchanges have opted to drop the token. Almost all authorities view Monero as the key to opening money laundering and other illigal activities.
Even some of the larger exchanges, such as Kraken, Houbi, Bittrex and Coinbase, have delisted the token. This left most users moving to Binance and Crypto.com to grab some XMR, but there’s more to the story.
It seems that darknet users have come to terms with the fact that using an exchange is an open door for somebody to spy on your activities. Even though users could trade their XMR on these centralised exchanges, they’ve opted for an alternative route. The anonymous theme behind Monero and its growth reports gave us some new incites to the token. In 2022, daily Monero transactions increased by 74% (from about 23,000 transactions a day to over 40,000)
The ETH merge caused some major issues in the mining industry, and as a result, XMR mining intensified in 2022. In fact, on Monero’s 8-year growth report, the team only reported positive changes to the token.
Enhancing Your Privacy
2022 marked a major step toward Monero’s goal to achieve absolute privacy. The token already boasts the most effective way to keep your money hidden, but on 13th August last year, it completed the hard-fork introducing new features to the currency and as a result, increasing its security.
- Ring size increase: The ring size increased from 11 to 16, making it the largest absolute increase in the base anonymity set.
- Improved the Bulletproofs algorithm: Bullerproofs+ reduces transaction sizes by 7% and improves verification performance (that means lighter and faster transactions)
- Reduce Wallet Sync Times: View tags dropped wallet sync times by 30-40%
- Fee changes: By improving the security and resilience of the network, the team also made rapid changes in the fee market.
- Multi-Sig Fixes: Perhaps the most important part of the update is their major fixes to the multi-sig system and critical security patches.
If you haven’t upgraded your wallet, well, make sure to do so now by replacing the old software with the new one.
Bitcoin Still Used More On Darknet Markets
Although Monero is used more commonly in alternative illicit activities, Bitcoin still stands as the most used cryptocurrency on darknet markets. Instead, the code was more commonly used for ransomware and fraud.
The main reason for this is that Russian marketplaces like OMG!OMG!, Blaksprut only accepts Bitcoin, while most western markets accept both. Washing Bitcoin with Monero, on the other hand, appears to be a more popular method.
We believe this will change in the future as Bitcoin chain analysis becomes more popular and regulations push harder. This should force users to move to the all-important Monero cryptocurrency.
There are additional reasons for Monero’s balance, such as the war on Ukraine and pushing sanctions against Russians, which have caused more to use cryptocurrencies like Monero to make international payments. But in reality, Monero stands to the core of what cryptocurrency is meant to be. A truly decentralized and private payment system. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, and most don’t hold Monero as an investment; the token stands as the pinnacle of monetary privacy.
Hey there, I’m a dark web geek who’s been around for the last 8 years. More precisely, I’m livedarknet’s senior content writer who’s been writing about darknet marketplaces, tutorials, and cybersecurity stuff for educational purposes.