There are around 900,000 Bitcoins linked to darknet and illegal activities
by John Smith 
Often singled out by the authorities as a currency that is only used by criminals and outlaws, the company Chainalysis wanted to calculate the number of Bitcoins BTC linked to illegal and criminal activities.
The latest massive Twitter hack highlighted the use of Bitcoin by hackers to get paid.
Chainalysis, a company known for its skills in analyzing and monitoring blockchain transactions, therefore estimates that around 900,000 BTC are linked to criminal activities on the darknet but also to bitcoin scams that can be seen on Youtube or even bitcoins stolen from crypto wallets on crypto exchanges.
In a section dedicated to these illicit BTC funds, the company therefore details the interesting figures it found on these bitcoins linked to cybercrime and other illegal activities.
585,030 bitcoins are linked to activities on the darknet i.e. buying and selling illegal products which may be drugs, lists of stolen bank card numbers, passwords, guns, fake passports, etc …
204,624 BTC are stolen bitcoins, coming from hacks on crypto exchanges for example, phishing by email.
98,045 BTC related to bitcoin scams that we see more and more on Youtube or on other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, …
Recently, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sued Youtube about the escalating crypto scams.
Not to mention the scams received by email or other crypto ponzi schemes.
Chainalysis also attributes 7,341 BTCs linked to other types of criminal activity.
Almost 900,000 BTC, therefore, which are linked to illegal activities, represents around 10 billion dollars or more than 8 billion euros.
The darkweb therefore represents the bulk of bitcoins used for illicit activities, but Chainalysis indicates that this figure is falling sharply.
It should also be remembered that hackers are now asking for Monero (XMR) rather than Bitcoin, Monero (XMR) being an anonymous and untraceable cryptocurrency.
This report is only about Bitcoin.
In the end, only 0.32% of transactions on the Bitcoin network are associated with illegal activity.
With time and its growing adoption by the general public and institutional investors, Bitcoin should therefore get rid of this image of a cryptocurrency used only by criminals, to the detriment of Monero which should take over.
A Bitcoin price currently around $11,113.
