Chinese Crypto Scammers on Telegram Are Fueling the Biggest Darknet Markets Ever

When achromatic markets for drugs, guns, and each mode of contraband archetypal sprang up connected the acheronian web much than a decennary ago, it seemed that cryptocurrency and the method sophistication of the anonymity bundle Tor were the keys to carrying retired billions of dollars worthy of untouchable, illicit transactions online.

Now, each of that looks a spot passé. In 2025, each it takes to get distant with tens of billions of dollars successful black-market crypto deals is simply a messaging level consenting to big scammers and quality traffickers, capable persistence to relaunch channels and accounts connected that work erstwhile they’re occasionally banned, and fluency successful Chinese.

The ecosystem of marketplaces for Chinese-speaking crypto scammers hosted connected the messaging work Telegram person present grown to beryllium bigger than ever before, according to a caller investigation from the crypto tracing steadfast Elliptic. Despite a little driblet aft Telegram banned 2 of the biggest specified markets successful aboriginal 2025, the 2 existent apical markets, known arsenic Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee, are unneurotic enabling adjacent to $2 cardinal a period successful money-laundering transactions, income of scam tools similar stolen data, fake concern websites, and AI deepfake tools, arsenic good arsenic different achromatic marketplace services arsenic varied arsenic gestation surrogacy and teen prostitution.

The crypto romance and concern scams regrettably known arsenic “pig butchering”—carried retired mostly from compounds successful Southeast Asia staffed with thousands of quality trafficking victims—have grown to go the world’s astir lucrative signifier of cybercrime. They propulsion successful astir $10 cardinal annually from US victims alone, according to the FBI. By selling money-laundering services and different scam-related offerings to those operations, markets similar Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee person grown successful parallel to an immense scale.

“When you see illicit usage of crypto assets, determination truly isn’t thing larger close now,” says Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s cofounder and main scientist.

In fact, these transgression trading zones aren’t simply the biggest online achromatic markets of the moment, but the biggest successful history. AlphaBay was erstwhile the biggest dark-web marketplace for drugs, stolen data, and hacking tools. Described by the FBI arsenic 10 times the size of the archetypal Silk Road dark-web cause marketplace astatine its peak, AlphaBay facilitated much than $1 cardinal successful transactions implicit its 2 and a fractional years online. Hydra, a Russian dark-web marketplace that besides offered money-laundering services to cryptocurrency thieves and ransomware groups, did much than $5 cardinal successful transactions implicit its 7 years of operation.

By comparison, Huione Guarantee, the Chinese-language, Telegram-based marketplace utilized mostly by crypto scammers, facilitated a stunning $27 cardinal successful transactions from 2021 to 2025, according to Elliptic, dwarfing each online achromatic marketplace earlier it, adjacent arsenic it operated successful afloat nationalist presumption connected Telegram’s messaging platform. Elliptic has called it simply “the largest illicit online marketplace to person ever operated.”