During last year the value of Bitcoin (BTC) sent to darknet markets increased by 70 percent, according to a Chainalysis report published on Jan. 18. The Chainalysis report points out that darknet activity is relatively not influenced by Bitcoin’s price action and does not necessarily drop when the price drops. According to the data contained in the report, in 2018 the relationship between the value of darknet market transactions and Bitcoin’s market performance was inverse. Over the course of 2018, the total value sent to darknet markets saw a notable 70 percent increase, while total Bitcoin economic transaction value dropped …

Cryptostorm, the VPN (virtual private network) service providers, revealed to Cointelegraph that they’ve been using Bitcoin and Namecoin to power their portal to the Darknet for months, announcing native access to Tor, I2P and .bit websites. The company, also known as “Cstorm,” has been providing VPN services since 2006. In an interview with CT, they said they have been looking into blockchain technologies since 2012, around the time they began accepting Bitcoin as payment. During our conversation, they officially announced their native integration of Namecoin’s .bit domains into their services, alongside their tunnels to .onion and .i2p websites, which allows …