The dark web thus removed the need to consort with Addidas-wearing gopniks (thugs.) Plug not picking up their phone? Navy to protect their comms, the browser’s code was made public in the mid-2000s and TOR became a nonprofit aimed at helping activists in authoritarian regimes bypass the censors. Chainalysis has been researching the various aspects of geography of cryptocurrency use for several years, although the firm admits locating such activity on the globe is a tricky task and such research has its limitations. Hydra delivers drugs to buyers via “drops,” in which a delivery person hides the purchase close to a buyer and shares the geolocation of the package so it can be collected.
In April 2022, the German federal police, acting on information from their American colleagues, seized the servers hosting Hydra, replacing its banner with their logo and retrieving $25 million in Bitcoin. At first, buyers hoped the platform would be resurrected and reappear in some form. Hand-to-hand sales enjoyed a brief revival, but more so in small towns and rural areas.
Data Limitations
Western DNMs will continue to innovate and spearhead blockchain operational security, including the possibility to forgo Bitcoin and other public ledger blockchains altogether. For instance, AlphaBay Market’s second iteration – which claims to be the world’s largest DNM – is a Monero-only marketplace. The Russian-language DNM space is preparing for the inauguration of the widely-anticipated Kraken Market, touted by the community as Hydra Market’s successor. Several marketplaces operating in the former Soviet Union could disappear as vendors and buyers establish themselves on this new DNM, resulting in a greater centralization of marketplaces in this region.
- The nation’s junior Home Minister Nityanand Rai responded in parliament to questions about drug trafficking from Jose K. Mani, a minister of parliament (MP) from the opposition.
- By contrast, the English language ASAP market, the largest non-Russian darknet market, accounts for less than 10 percent of dark web sales.
- The browser uses onion routing technology to route the internet traffic through multiple relay nodes that provide layered encryption.
- “We know they will find another way to do their business. They will probably try to build a new platform, and we will have to keep our eye on it. We don’t know the perpetrators, so that’s the next step,” says Mr Zwiebel.
- These tools enable a rapidly growing cohort of organizations around the world to safely embrace cryptocurrency-related transactions, products, and partnerships.
- Its focus on financial fraud and high-value transactions has attracted a dedicated user base, contributing to its growing reputation and market value.
ASAP Darknet Market
OFAC is closely monitoring any efforts to circumvent or violate Russia-related sanctions, including through the use of virtual currency, and is committed to using its broad enforcement authorities to act against violations and to promote compliance. Established in 2019, Russian Market is a well-known and highly regarded data store on the dark web, specializing in the sale of PII and various forms of stolen data. Despite its name, the marketplace operates primarily in English and serves a global audience. It has gained a reputation for being a reliable source of high-quality data for cybercriminals.
Serving countries of the former Soviet Union, these new Russian-language DNMs have achieved near-dominance of the overall DNM ecosystem, representing over 80% of all deposits made to darknet marketplaces in 2022. The marketplace itself charges a commission on each transaction, which contributes to its continuous operation. Russianmarket has also been known to vet its vendors, offering an additional layer of security and trust for its clientele. The vendors on this platform often specialize in specific areas, such as credit card fraud, phishing tools, or hacked databases. Russianmarket’s success lies in its structure, ease of use, and a reputation for reliability in a dangerous space.
The Russian investigative outlet, The Project, published an article in July of 2019 that estimated Hydra’s user base to exceed 2.5 million and confirmed that over 393,000 accounts left at least one review for a product. The Project also estimated that as of Jul 25, 2019, Hydra had generated over $1 billion in revenue. However, BBC research earlier this year revealed the most common way for darknet sites to close is via so-called ‘exit scams’ where the administrators voluntarily shut down the sites but steal their customer’s funds in the process.
Transactions on Hydra were conducted in cryptocurrency and Hydra’s operators charged a commission for every transaction conducted on Hydra. The Dark Web is a part of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and requires special software to access. It is notorious for its illicit activities, including the sale of drugs, weapons, and stolen data.
What Is Russianmarket?
In December 2019, Hydra announced it wanted to expand to other regions of the world and would hold a $146 million token sale. It has a bidding feature, with new batches of stolen data being frequently added. Active for a decade since 2014, it is a widely used credit card shop used to source stolen credit card information such as dumps, CVVs, Wholesale Accounts. It maintains a very strict level of user verification and integration with an official Telegram account to provide real-time updates to users. Various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero can be used to make purchases.
See Why DarkOwl Is The Leader In Darknet Data
The Russian Market Dark Web poses significant challenges for law enforcement agencies and cybersecurity professionals. Its emphasis on user anonymity and encryption makes it difficult to track down and apprehend cybercriminals operating on the platform. Furthermore, the international nature of the Dark Web makes cooperation between different jurisdictions complex and time-consuming.
How To Gain Safe Access To The Dark Web Marketplaces
The marketplace has created an ecosystem where cybercriminals can operate with relative impunity, offering everything from stolen data to hacking tools. As the dark web continues to evolve, Russianmarket.to will likely remain a significant player, further complicating global efforts to combat cybercrime. By providing a marketplace for stolen data and hacking tools, it contributes significantly to the rise in cyberattacks, data breaches, and financial fraud worldwide. Many of the tools sold on Russianmarket, such as phishing kits or ransomware, have been linked to major cybercrime syndicates that target individuals, corporations, and even governments. Much like legitimate e-commerce platforms, Russianmarket is a marketplace that connects vendors with customers.
RussianMarket
This early detection allows organizations to identify and respond to threats quickly, reducing the chances of unauthorized access, financial loss, or damage to brand reputation. Since its inception, the market has catered to criminals looking for high-quality counterfeit items, such as fake IDs, passports, and branded luxury goods. Bohemia accepts Monero and Bitcoin as payment methods and places a strong emphasis on protecting user anonymity through PGP encryption. Chainalysis does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of the information in this report and will not be responsible for any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies of any part of such material. The Justice Department announced today coordinated actions against the BlackSuit (Royal) Ransomware group which included the takedown of four servers and nine domains on July 24, 2025.
However, a combination of law enforcement crackdowns, increasing instability from new users flooding the dark web from Telegram, and infighting among the larger markets has triggered a shift. Many of these big markets are now engaged in cyber warfare, with vendors and operators attacking each other to assert dominance, often leading to disruptions and shutdowns. This “market cannibalization” has further destabilized the landscape, pushing vendors and buyers to seek refuge in smaller, more secure spaces. As large platforms face disruption from law enforcement action, dark web infighting, and an influx of users from Telegram, there’s a growing shift toward smaller, more specialized marketplaces.
NightSpire Ransomware Group Claims To Exploit The Vulnerabilities Of Orgs To Infiltrate Their Systems
The two charts below show which markets Hydra’s previous counterparties used the most in both of those two time periods. The color of the lines show the former Hydra users’ category of activity and the thickness of the lines show the proportion of their activity flowing to new markets after Hydra was shut down. In the Spring 2020 CAML Report, CipherTrace reported to have discovered that 86.8% of all criminal BTC received by Russian exchanges came from Hydra. Interestingly, despite Hydra Market being Russian and serving only Russia and the surrounding countries, in 2019, 31.2% of criminal BTC received by UK exchanges came from Hydra Market. During 2018 and 2019, Interpol and the European Union brought together law enforcement agencies from 19 countries, leading to the identification of 247 high-value targets and the sharing of operational intelligence required for effective enforcement.
However, the Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation (OPTF), which developed the “LokiNet” dark net as well as the end-to-end encryption messenger “Session,” saw an overwhelming influx of Iranian users since September 2022. The OPTF worked diligently to incorporate the support Persian (Farsi) script into the Session service and support connectivity from various VPNs circumventing Iranian firewalls (Figure 3). Russia started tightening its restrictions on VPN services like Tor and dark web usage two months before the invasion of Ukraine, in December 2021.
It first became active in early July 2020, with deposit volumes so low it appeared to be less of a darknet market and more a personal operation. However, nearly as soon as Hydra shut down, OMG began seeing high inflows for the first time, more than half of which came from Hydra counterparties. Like the vast majority of all darknet market users, former Hydra counterparties across all categories — both retail drug buyers and criminal users — transacted almost exclusively with OMG during the OMG dominance period. In the post-OMG dominance period, OMG retained a number of those former Hydra counterparties, but lost a significant share of their illicit activity to the other two markets across all categories. Throughout 2022, we observed a negative relationship between funds sent to regular darknet markets and those sent to single vendor shops.
