A new cryptocurrency is giving Bitcoin a run for its money when it comes to the title of being the most favored currency on the dark net. The new cryptocurrency, Monero has emerged to be more secretive than Bitcoin, gaining ready acceptance on the deep web marketplaces. Alphabay, a well-known deep web marketplace for drugs, contraband, and other illegal substances has announced its support for Monero recently. According to reports, users of Alphabay will be able to pay for their purchase with Monero starting September 1, 2016. Monero offers better privacy than Bitcoin, making it an obvious choice for Alphabay . The Bitcoin blockchain maintains a public record of all the transactions happening over the network. These transactions have an identifier in the form of wallet address associated with it. As most people tend to reuse their wallet addresses, it is easy to track activities of individual accounts. Blockchain analysis software creates clusters of wallets, based on the transaction pattern which can be further analyzed to even discover the identity of the wallet owner. Monero, on the other hand automatically generates a new wallet address for each transaction. In addition, the transactions on Monero blockchain can’t be viewed unless the person has access to the private viewkey associated with a particular transaction. The Bitcoin community is relieved to see a new digital currency eat into Bitcoin’s share of dark net transactions. They believe that as the new cryptocurrency gains mainstream status on the dark net, the backlash associated with Bitcoin as the “ currency of crime ” will fade. Tyler Moffitt, a senior threat researcher from cyber security firm Webroot was quoted by a media website saying, “It makes perfect sense for the dark net auction site to welcome Monero, it’s more secure than Bitcoin since the transaction blockchain […]
