Darknet Markets research?

Hi everyone,

I'm an economist (https://twitter.com/tuurdemeester) currently trying to figure out what the growth and trading volumes are in Darknet Markets, to see whether there is demand here that supports Bitcoin and altcoin prices.

There is quite a lot of research available around Silk Road 1.0, but recent data is harder to come by.

So far I found this table from Digital Citizens Alliance: http://imgur.com/8MckkBc. I also read that Nicolas Christin from Carnegie Mellon University is working on new research.

Can anyone help me find more data? Specifically, I want to know: - What percentage of trades on the dark net is conducted with BTC? - Is Darkcoin used? How often? - How many bitcoins are being spent on the darknet on a daily/monthly/yearly basis? - Very interested in any other available data.

Thank you!

Tuur


Comments


[5 Points] gwern:

Can anyone help me find more data? Specifically, I want to know: - What percentage of trades on the dark net is conducted with BTC? - Is Darkcoin used? How often? - How many bitcoins are being spent on the darknet on a daily/monthly/yearly basis? - Very interested in any other available data.

These sorts of clean summary figures aren't available, because they're hell to extract from scrapes of the site. You've read Christin's SR1 paper... now imagine doing that for ~50 other sites, to get coverage of 2014 alone. (And yes, you need to do the smaller sites too if you're interested in the minimal Darkcoin usage, because only a few of the smaller sites have ever offered it as an option.)


[4 Points] WhereIsMyLSD:

Every market and transaction I've made used BTC. I remember though that tor market accepted both bitcoin and altcoin. Id imagine it'd be hard to predict growth due to BTC volatility and the ever present threat of markets getting shit down.


[3 Points] None:

[deleted]


[2 Points] Eopsi:

It's essentially all BTC. No idea on volumes, would be interesting to hear about though.