In recent years, illicit activities on the dark web have increasingly migrated to more mainstream platforms, leading to a surge in black market operations mainly conducted via messaging apps. A recent analysis by the crypto tracing firm Elliptic highlights the shift from traditional dark web marketplaces to Telegram, where cryptocurrency scams and human trafficking operations are thriving in a more visible yet secure environment.
Contrary to the early days of dark web markets heavily reliant on cryptocurrencies and anonymity software like Tor, the current landscape demands far less sophistication. As of 2025, the core components of carrying out large-scale illicit transactions include merely a willingness to host scammers, the tenacity to bypass bans on these platforms, and fluency in Chinese. This shift indicates a growing normalization of illegal activities within digital communication spaces.
Elliptic’s findings reveal that markets such as Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee have emerged as major players in the illicit economy, collectively facilitating nearly $2 billion monthly in various nefarious transactions. These markets provide a range of services from money laundering and selling stolen data to offering fake investment opportunities and even human trafficking services like pregnancy surrogacy and teen prostitution.
One of the most notorious forms of cybercrime is the so-called “pig butchering” scam, which has become particularly lucrative. This scam targets individuals, often leading to losses amounting to approximately $10 billion annually from U.S. victims alone, based on FBI estimates. The operations linked to these scams are often based in Southeast Asia and exploit thousands of human trafficking victims, creating a vicious cycle of crime and exploitation.
According to Tom Robinson, the co-founder and chief scientist of Elliptic, the illicit use of crypto assets has reached unprecedented scales, with the current criminal trading zones being the largest seen historically. Earlier dark web giants like AlphaBay and Hydra facilitated substantial volumes of transactions, but their figures are dwarfed by current activities on Telegram.
For instance, Huione Guarantee, primarily serving Chinese-speaking users, reportedly conducted transactions totaling around $27 billion between 2021 and 2025. This staggering figure exceeds the transactional volumes of any previous online black market, including those known for drug sales and hacking tools. Elliptic has characterized Huione Guarantee as “the largest illicit online marketplace to have ever operated,” highlighting the significant shift toward more visible but still clandestine marketplaces.
As these operations continue to thrive, they pose new challenges for law enforcement and regulatory agencies, leaving many to grapple with how to effectively combat the intertwining of digital platforms and illegal activities. The full extent of this emerging landscape underscores a worrying trend: crime might be evolving, but its peddlers are leveraging the very tools of modern communication that many rely on for legitimate purposes.
