Dark Web Criminals Create Tool For Checking Dirty Bitcoin: Report

Dark web criminals created a new tool that will allow them to check for dirty bitcoin and their level of risk before trying to cash out the coins earned from crimes so let’s read more in our bitcoin news today.

The Antinalysis tool makes all crime-related blockchain analytics available to the public as the Dark web criminals launched it. However, according to Tom Robinson, the co-founder of Elliptic this tool is not effective. The new tool on the dark web allows criminals to check how clean their BTC is and the tool was likely built by the administrator of the darknet market to help their merchants launder BTC according to the analysis by Tom Robinson who is the co-founder of Elliptic. After the wallet is linked to Antinalysis the tool breaks down from where the BTC originated and how risky it is to hold it. BTC earned from the darknet markets, ransomware, and theft are considered to be a major risk while BTC from the exchange and newly mined coins are classified as no-risk assets.

The assessment allows criminals to work out how likely it is that crypto exchanges will flag their crypto as proceeds of crime as Robinson noted. Elliptic provides the tools to crypto exchanges and the Antinalysis runs on tor which is a privacy-oriented web browser that allows access to the dark web and costs about $3 to generate the report. Elliptic tested the tool and found that it is poor at linking to major dark web markets and Robinson stated:

“This is perhaps not surprising—providing accurate blockchain analytics requires significant investment in technology and data collection, over long periods of time.”

The analysis of the tool by security expert Brian Krebs shows the results provided by the Analysis to be the same as the ones provided by AMLBot as an anti-money laundering detection software which suggests the criminals created the tool on the AMLBot API. Robinson identified the creator of the tool to be one of the developers of Incognito Market which is a dark web marketplace that specializes in narcotics. Incognito Market was launched in late 2020 and it accepts payments in BTC and privacy-focused Monero.

The launch of the analysis shows how hard it is for criminals to cash out their BTC proceeds but it also makes the crime-oriented blockchain analytics available to the public for the first time ever.