Russia named leader in shadow crypto operations market

Russia turned out to be the largest jurisdiction in the sector of shadow transactions and “gray” cryptocurrency exchanges, found out analysts of the Clain specialized platform . This, in their opinion, is due to the popularity of banned services based in Russia, including the darknet site for the sale of drugs Hydra.

The share of Russia in the market of shadow crypto-operations reached 41.1%, Clain analysts calculated. The country topped the top 5 most popular jurisdictions for both Ethereum and Bitcoin.

The most active users of cryptocurrency exchanges through which darknet transactions go are also found in Ukraine (market share — 6.54%), Great Britain (2.8%), Germany (1.87%). The share of "unknown countries" was 24.6%, "other" - 23.1%.

Experts believe that Russia has become the main jurisdiction for exchange and trading of cryptocurrencies with a low level of verification due to the popularity of banned services of the shadow Internet segment in the country. Hydra accounted for the largest volume of illegal transactions. The average transaction value on the platform was $51.

• According to Clain, by the end of 2020, the number of accounts of "gray" cryptocurrency exchanges in the world was approaching 350 million people. The volume of transactions on them increased by 30% last year, exceeding $19.7 billion. The volume of shadow transactions in cryptocurrency reached $4.2 billion (+16%).

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During the pandemic, the main trend in crime has become its digitalization, according to Group-IB. According to experts, almost 70% of registered crimes related to the illegal circulation of weapons, as well as the sale of counterfeit money, securities and documents, were committed remotely and anonymously.