Dream Market just adopted Bitcoin Cash as a payment method, stirring some controversy for the cryptocurrency’s lack of substantial privacy safeguards.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade, you’ve probably heard about the near-legendary story of the Silk Road.
If you look at under the hood of why the Silk Road was relatively successful, and you’ll know it’s largely because of the anonymity aspect of Bitcoin.
After all, who would want to do business in a dark web market if the authorities can trace the money trail to you?
Even though the Silk Road darknet marketplace was shut down by the FBI back in 2013, many other dark websites that have taken the lead in its place.
One of the most notable marketplaces to dominate the scene is Dream Market. Recently, Dream is creating a lot of buzz with adopting a new cryptocurrency.
The move is raising a lot of eyebrows, and mainly due to the fact that the newly adopted currency is not exactly the shining epitome of anonymity and privacy.
What we are talking about is the adoption of Bitcoin Cash.
First of all, a lot of people are relieved to see Dream Market is back from a temporary “maintenance” period.
In the dark web, it’s usually common to see a darknet market go from “maintenance” to complete shutdown in a matter of hours.
But it seems that Dream Market didn’t have any real problems, and this temporary outage was just a maintenance phase.
Also, it appears that the developers are making use of the downtime because they have started to accept Bitcoin Cash after the site went back online.
It is interesting to see that Dream Market is adopting Bitcoin Cash. In fact, it’s probably the first darknet market that accepts Bitcoin Cash at all.
If Dream Market users want to use this digital currency, they are free to do so by turning it on in the user settings.
As for more security, seems Monero is taking the spotlight.
At the moment, there’s a clear battle that is going on between authorities and dark web market operators. In fact, two large markets have been shut down by the authorities this year.
For darknet market developers and users, there’s a growing need for a more secure form of currency. At the moment, it seems Monero is taking the spotlight, which brings us back to Dream Market’s move.
Why would the developers integrate Bitcoin Cash first rather than Monero? This is a common question among users.
Furthermore, it seems that most dark web markets are heading the opposite direction, already ditching Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash and starting to adopt Monero.
However, Monero is not the only cryptocurrency that specializes in offering higher levels of privacy and anonymity. Hence, it would be interesting to see which cryptocurrency is going to take the lead in the long run.
Alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are not always as secure enough for darknet marketplace use.
These coins are too transparent, which is something that dark web users and developers don’t want.
With moves such as these, conspiracy theories start to arise, and for a good reason.
One of the biggest dark web markets that were seized by the authorities this year was Hansa Market.
In the coordinated takedown, law enforcement ran the site as a honeypot for weeks before officially shutting down the site publically.
During this time, authorities gathered information about Hansa users and vendors. The information was then passed to respective foreign countries, which led to more arrests.
So, is the addition of Bitcoin Cash truly a legitimate move by the developers? Or, is it now a honeypot to gather more information about darknet market users. It seems only time will tell.
Comments (No)