The blockchain forensic firm, Chainalysis has brought to the fore details of darknet activities and ransomware volume linked to Eastern Europe.

Details obtained from the Geography of Cryptocurrency Report of Chainalysis. The 2020 edition of this report revealed the emergence of the Eastern region of Europe as the seat of darknet market globally, judging particularly by its role in the hosting and operating in anonymity a free market called “Hydra”.  Hydra is a crypto service marketplace purported to be the sixth largest in the world.                                                                          

Chainalysis claimed that a whopping $1.2 billion of revenue from crypto exchanged hands within a span of 13 months, June 2019 to July 2020. Further revealed is the fact that the major beneficiaries of this $41billion market which is about 1,4% of crypto volume are traced to Eastern Europe but sadly a good fraction is serving illegitimate concerns.  Closely following Eastern Europe is Latin America with 1.6% of the crypto service transfer volume heading to illicit firms.

Given the role of Eastern Europe in ransomeware activities, a new wave of crime networks worth millions of dollars are associated with movement of cryptocurrency volumes. A perusal of ransomware addresses receiving transfers globally have 28% traced to Eastern Europe.

Russia and Ukraine are the two top destinations according to the Chainalysis Report in its Global Crypto Adoption Index Report that have widely welcomed and accepted crypto assets the most. These countries have exhibited a level of trust in cryptocurrency hence they have gone way ahead to use these assets for legitimate concerns even in the face of its region record cybercrimes powered by crypto which are termed as “High-levels” according to Chainalysis. Crypto fund management in the region is a top financial role. Managers operating in the crypto space each can boast of handling crypto transactions in the excess of $10,000, Chainalysis reported.