The price of Bitcoin (BTC) will skyrocket up to $100,000 in the coming year, according to the founder of infamous darknet marketplace Silk Road. In a series of blog posts on Dec. 10, Ross Ulbricht — the founder of now-defunct anonymous marketplace Silk Road — predicted that BTC’s price will reach $100,000 in 2020. The blogs were published based on letters he wrote in prison, using a type of market analysis known as Elliott Wave Theory. Ulbricht claimed the possibility to carry out such an analysis even without knowing Bitcoin day-to-day price movements and the general condition of the market. …

Russia’s largest darknet marketplace is looking to raise $146 million in a token offering that would allow it to go global. As Forklog reported on Dec. 11, the token sale is almost certainly illegal — in this case not merely for flouting securities laws or other financial regulations. “A new era in the West” The operators of the marketplace, known as “Hydra,” have ambitions to roll out their model of anonymized, rogue trading for illicit substances at a massive scale. An investment memorandum, accessible only via dark web browsers like Tor, claims the platform’s global expansion “will start a new …

The Tor Project, the nonprofit organization behind the anonymous network Tor, announced that it now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) donations via the Lightning Network. The organization announced on Nov. 19 that it will accept Lightning Network donations as part of Bitcoin Tuesday, a fundraising initiative led by the crypto-for-charity organization The Giving Block. Tor recommended the BottlePay wallet for donations, which allows users to search for The Tor Project inside it and send crypto without copying and pasting addresses. The Lightning Network is a layer-2 payment protocol for the Bitcoin network that aims to expedite payments and address the network’s scalability …

Major antivirus software supplier ESET has discovered a trojanized Tor Browser designed to steal Bitcoin (BTC) from buyers in the darknet. Fake browser distributed via 2 websites Targeting users in Russia, the fake Tor Browser was distributed via two websites and has been stealing crypto from darknet shoppers by swapping the original crypto addresses since 2017, ESET’s editorial division WeLiveSecurity reported Oct. 18. Created back in 2014, the two fake Tor Browser websites — tor-browser[.]org and torproect[.]org — are mimicking the real website of the anonymous browser, torproject.org. According to the Slovakian software security firm, these websites display a message …

A former interpreter for the United States military forces was sentenced to 30 years in jail for dealing fentanyl, which led to the death of a U.S. Marine. Drugs paid for with cryptocurrencies According to a Reuters report from Oct. 3, a former Iraqi U.S interpreter was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole for using the darknet to sell fentanyl. Alaa Mohammed Allawi pleaded guilty to the drug charges and acknowledged using the now-defunct online darknet market Alpha Bay to sell a variety of hard drugs, such as oxycodone laced with fentanyl, while accepting …

From speculation about its inherent value to theories about it being the payment method of choice for criminals, cryptocurrency is having a tough time keeping a clean name. One of the most common accusations is that cryptocurrencies perpetuate the sale of illicit drugs, a view recently expressed by United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Cointelegraph takes a look at the impact of cryptocurrency on illegal drug sales and whether it should shoulder more of the blame than cash. U.S. government clamps down The watershed moment for the U.S. taking decisive action against illicit drugs being purchased with cryptocurrency happened in …

More and more cryptocurrency addresses have been added to the United States Department of the Treasury’s list of Specially Designated Nationals, which are marked as being possibly associated with the global drug trade. According to the Kingpin Act, U.S. companies and individuals are banned from any type of commercial relationship with addresses on the list as well as people connected to them. The three Bitcoin (BTC) addresses that recently came under a fire belong to Chinese citizens. Less than a week after Chainalysis rolled out a real-time suspicious transactions detector, its global head of policy, Jesse Spiro, shared his concerns …

Stolen funds represent only 8.1% of all funds sent to cryptocurrency mixers, according to New York-based blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Primary use for privacy reasons According to a recent Chainalysis webinar, the majority of funds sent to cryptocurrency mixing services or tumblers comes from exchanges, which indicates that such funds are primarily used for privacy purposes rather than for illicit activities. Conducted on Aug. 14, the webinar called “Cryptocurrency Typologies: What You Should Know About Who’s Who on the Blockchains” covers a large number of risk typologies in crypto industry, including darknet markets, terrorist financing, sanctioned cryptocurrency addresses, stolen funds, …

The sentencing of the CEO of the now-defunct darknet marketplace Silk Road shows that Bitcoin usage by criminals is in the past, according to Danny Scott, CEO of Isle of Man-based Bitcoin (BTC) exchange CoinCorner. Gary Davis was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for helping manage the now-defunct darknet marketplace Silk Road. The 31-year-old Irish man, who was extradited to the United States, had served as Silk Road forum moderator between May and June 2013 before working as a site administrator between June 2013 and Oct. 2, 2013, according to a report by Irish independent radio station Newstalk on …

At least 95% of cryptocurrency crimes investigated by law enforcement involve bitcoin (BTC,) the co-founder and COO of Chainalysis told Fortune on April 24. Jonathan Levin, whose company offers investigation software for law enforcement to pursue bad actors, said BTC is “by far the favorite” for hackers and criminals. He revealed that law enforcement needs to take more sophisticated approaches to tackle darknets — and warned that the crypto industry was starting to see the beginnings of terrorism financing. Levin said the records left behind by crypto transactions has led to many arrests, as officials in the United States tackle …

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance announced on April 23 that two men plead guilty for illicitly selling steroids and controlled substances and laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies and Western Union payments. Callaway Crain, 35, and Mark Sanchez, also 35, were allegedly behind the darknet website “NextDayGear,” and also manufactured some of the substances they sold. Among their products were reportedly injectable and oral steroids, as well as medication to counteract the adverse effects of their use, including Xanax, Valium and Viagra. Per the announcement, the defendants shipped over 10,000 packages across the United States, generating over $2.3 million …

United Kingdom and Ireland-based auction house Wilsons Auctions will host its first Bitcoin (BTC) auction in late February as per a contract with the Belgian Federal Government. The news was announced in a blog post from the firm on Feb. 18. The auction is set to sell off a total amount of about $430,000 in cryptocurrencies, which had previously been seized by the Belgium’s police as a result of a drug trafficking case involving the use of Darknet. The 24-hour online auction starts on Feb. 28 at 12 p.m. GMT and will finish on March 1. According to the press …