Collective Dynamics of Dark Web Marketplaces
hubie writes:
A Nature Scientific Reports paper looks at the dynamics of illicit web sites and finds that the ecosystem is very resilient. They found that when a web site is shuttered due to law enforcement activity or an exit scam, the closures mainly affected low activity users while high activity users migrate quickly to a new marketplace. The also found that two-thirds of the users who choose to move to a new dark site choose to follow each other to the new site: the marketplace that receives the largest number of migrating users tends to have the largest volume and the most users in common with the closed marketplace.
ABSTRACT:
Dark web marketplaces are websites that facilitate trade in illicit goods, mainly using Bitcoin. Since dark web marketplaces are unregulated, they do not offer any user protection, so police raids and scams regularly cause large losses to marketplace participants. However, the uncertainty has not prevented the proliferation of dark web marketplaces. Here, we investigate how the dark web marketplace ecosystem reorganises itself following marketplace closures. We analyse 24 separate episodes of unexpected marketplace closure by inspecting 133 million Bitcoin transactions among 38 million users. We focus on "migrating users" who move their trading activity to a different marketplace after a closure. We find that most migrating users continue their trading activity on a single coexisting marketplace, typically the one with the highest trading volume. User migration is swift and trading volumes of migrating users recover quickly. Thus, although individual marketplaces might appear fragile, coordinated user migration guarantees overall systemic resilience.
ElBahrawy, A., Alessandretti, L., Rusnac, L. et al. Collective dynamics of dark web marketplaces. Sci Rep 10, 18827 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74416-y
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