Who accepts Bitcoin: merchants, governments, dating sites, and the dark-web public record
Document text
Research, not advice. Part of the Bitcoin research archive (October 2026). Claims labelled unverified, contested or fringe are reported, not endorsed; statuses of bills and rules are as of the date checked. Government, court and patent records are public domain; the research notes are CC BY 4.0.
Who accepts Bitcoin: merchants, governments, dating sites, and the dark-web public record
Checked 2026-10-09. Research notes, not advice. Every claim carries a source; anything not confirmed from a primary or clearly reliable source is marked (unverified), and disputed points are labelled Contested.
Related files in this repo:
- market/2026-10-09-payment-processors.md: the processors themselves (BitPay,
Square, PayPal, Coinbase, BTCPay Server, OpenNode, Strike and others), with their licences and enforcement history.
This file covers who accepts Bitcoin; that file covers how the money moves.
- sources/darkweb-public-record/INDEX.md: saved copies of the DOJ,
Treasury and Europol releases and the court filings used in the dark-web section.
The short version
- Most "Bitcoin acceptance" is a processor converting to dollars. The merchant usually never holds bitcoin: Colorado, Detroit, Louisiana, Zug, Emirates and Ferrari all receive their own currency (tax.colorado.gov; BridgeDetroit; Bitcoin Magazine; Kanton Zug; Yahoo Finance; Inside Bitcoins).
- Big names come and go. Steam (2016–2017), Stripe (2014–2018), Expedia (2014–2018), Tesla (about three months in 2021), Wikimedia (2014–2022) and Mozilla (paused 2022) all stopped; Coinbase Commerce dropped native Bitcoin in February 2024. Details and sources are in the sections below.
- The 2025–2026 wave runs on Lightning and big processors. PayPal "Pay with Crypto" for US merchants (announced 2025-07-28), Square bitcoin payments switched on by default for eligible US sellers (about 1 million by May 2026), Steak 'n Shake (since May 2025), and Emirates for UAE residents (2026).
- El Salvador made acceptance compulsory in 2021 and voluntary again in 2025 as a condition of a $1.4 billion IMF programme (IMF PR25/43). Whether bitcoin is still "legal tender" there is contested (see Governments).
- Dating sites: the only well-documented case is OkCupid, which began taking bitcoin through Coinbase in April 2013 (Y Combinator) and no longer lists it (OkCupid help centre). Lists of "dating sites that accept Bitcoin" come from crypto-industry blogs and could not be confirmed (see Dating sites).
- Dark-web markets (Silk Road, Silk Road 2.0, AlphaBay, Hansa, Wall Street Market, Hydra, Genesis and later markets) are covered below from law-enforcement releases, court filings and research papers only.
- How much Bitcoin use is illicit is contested. One academic estimate puts it at about 46% of transactions in Bitcoin's early years (Foley et al. 2019); a later study using better entity data finds illegal use, scams and gambling together under 3% of volume (Makarov & Schoar 2021); Chainalysis puts illicit activity across all crypto at under 1% of volume in 2025 (Chainalysis).
How acceptance works, and where identity checks (KYC) sit
There are three ways a business takes Bitcoin:
- Directly, in its own wallet. Usually self-hosted software such as BTCPay Server: no intermediary, so there is no processor KYC on anyone; the merchant carries its own tax and anti-money-laundering obligations. Namecheap is the best-documented large user (see Hosting).
- Through a processor (BitPay, Square, PayPal, CoinGate, Crypto.com Pay and others), which identity-checks the merchant (know-your-business) and usually converts to fiat. Buyers are mostly not identity-checked by the processor below thresholds, though their own exchange has usually checked them.
- Through gift cards bought with bitcoin (Bitrefill, the BitPay app). The brand never touches bitcoin; the gift-card seller does the KYC.
Identity checks at the main processors, as published (checked 2026-10-09):
| Processor | Merchant checks | Buyer checks | Licensing / registration (as stated by the company or regulator) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BitPay (US, founded 2011) | Tiered: tier 2 ($10k/day, $500k/yr) needs IDs of all 25%+ owners, business registration, tax ID, website, settlement account; tier 3 ($100k/day, $5M/yr) adds three months of bank statements; tier 4 (unlimited) needs a compliance call | BitPay ID required for purchases over $3,000, for refund and payout recipients, and for VPN users | Licences page lists state money-transmitter licences by state (New York licence no. 0000008; California shown as "application pending") and a New York BitLicense; NMLS ID 1496848. FinCEN MSB registration not checked this session (unverified). OFAC settled with BitPay for $507,375 on 2021-02-18 (saved copy in sources/payment-processors/). |
BitPay compliance docs (page dated 2025-09-22); BitPay licences |
| Square (Block) | Legal business name, SSN/EIN, business address, beneficial ownership; two-step verification if settling in bitcoin | None mentioned; buyer pays from any Lightning wallet | US only, not available in New York; licensing detail is in the processors file | Square help |
| PayPal Pay with Crypto | Approved PayPal checkout account; business information | Buyer pays from own wallet (Coinbase, OKX, Binance, Kraken, Phantom, MetaMask, Exodus at launch) | US merchants except New York; gambling needs extra due diligence | PayPal help; SiliconANGLE 2025-07-28 |
| Bitrefill (gift cards) | n/a | Tiered (see Gift cards): no account up to $500/day; ID + proof of address + selfie for the top tier | Entities: Airfill Prepaid AB (Sweden), Airfill US LLC (Delaware), Bitrefill S.A. de C.V. (El Salvador). Swedish or Salvadoran registration not confirmed (unverified). | Bitrefill terms (updated 2026-09-30) |
Processors that stopped offering Bitcoin: - Stripe supported bitcoin from 2014 and ended it on 2018-04-23, citing volatility and slow confirmation (TechCrunch 2018-01-23). It now handles stablecoins only (see the processors file). - Coinbase Commerce removed native Bitcoin (and other UTXO coins) on 2024-02-18; bitcoin can still be paid from a Coinbase account (Cointelegraph).
Categories and notable merchants
"Status" is what a source showed on the date given, not a guarantee that checkout works today.
Retail, electronics and restaurants
| Merchant | Status | How | KYC | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square sellers (US) | About 1 million US merchants bitcoin-enabled (reported 2026-05-12); switched on by default for eligible sellers from March 30 (2026) | Lightning only; seller picks USD or BTC settlement; 0% fee until 2026-12-31, then 1%; max about $600 per payment and $20,000 per day | Seller KYB (above); no buyer check stated | Bitcoin Magazine; Square help; TechCrunch 2025-10-08 |
| Steak 'n Shake (US restaurant chain) | Accepting since May 2025, via Lightning | Lightning at the till | Not stated | Bitcoin Magazine 2026-09-09 |
| Newegg | Listed as accepting via BitPay (checked 2026-10-09); started July 2014 | BitPay | BitPay rules apply (ID over $3,000) | BitPay directory; Wikipedia, History of bitcoin |
| Overstock | First major US online retailer, January 2014; current status not checked | Originally via Coinbase (unverified) | — | Wikipedia, History of bitcoin |
| Microsoft | From 2014-12-11, US customers could add bitcoin to a Microsoft account balance (not a direct checkout method); current status (unverified): BitPay's Microsoft directory page returned no content | Account top-up | — | IBTimes 2014-12-11 |
| Steam (Valve) | Stopped 2017-12-06, citing slow transactions, volatility and high fees; had accepted since April 2016 via BitPay | BitPay | — | Wikipedia, History of bitcoin; Wikipedia, BitPay |
| Tesla | Accepted bitcoin for cars from early 2021; suspended 2021-05-12 over fossil-fuel use in mining | Direct | — | WTVR 2021-05-12. Start date: the source says February 2021; it is often given as March 2021 (unverified). |
| BitPay directory brands (Walmart, Delta, Airbnb, Uber Eats, adidas, AMC and others) | Listed among "250+ companies & stores" | The directory mixes "Pay Direct" merchants with brands reached only through gift cards bought in the BitPay app, so a listing does not mean the brand takes bitcoin at its own checkout | Gift-card purchases follow BitPay's rules | BitPay directory |
Contested: Steak 'n Shake says sales grew "double digits" since it began accepting bitcoin (Bitcoin Magazine). That is the company's own claim; no independent data separates bitcoin's effect from its other promotions (unverified).
Travel
| Merchant | Status | How | KYC / licensing | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expedia | Accepted bitcoin for hotels from June 2014; quietly stopped by early July 2018 | — | — | Yahoo Finance 2018-07-07 |
| Travala.com | Accepts BTC and 100+ other cryptocurrencies plus cards; Skyscanner integration (2.2 million hotels) from September 2024 | Own checkout; Binance Pay and Crypto.com Pay also listed | Operating company, licences and KYC policy not stated on its homepage (unverified) | travala.com; news.bitcoin.com |
| Emirates (airline) | Launched 2026-07-28 for UAE residents only, on fares priced in dirhams | Crypto.com Pay; BTC, ETH, CRO; converted to dirhams (or a central-bank-approved dirham stablecoin) before Emirates is paid | Buyer approves payment in the Crypto.com app; Crypto.com account KYC presumably applies (unverified) | Yahoo Finance |
| Ferrari (cars) | US from about 2023; Europe from mid-2024 | BitPay; BTC, ETH, USDC; auto-converted to fiat for dealers | BitPay rules apply | Inside Bitcoins |
VPNs and hosting
| Merchant | Status (checked 2026-10-09) | KYC | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mullvad VPN (Sweden) | Accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Monero, plus cash, cards and others | Account is a generated number ("Start with one click"); no email or identity asked on the pricing page | mullvad.net/pricing |
| ExpressVPN | Current payment pages list cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay only; no crypto mentioned. BitPay's ExpressVPN directory page returns 404. Third-party reviews still say it takes bitcoin (unverified; appears to have stopped) | — | ExpressVPN payments; ExpressVPN support (updated 2026-05-07) |
| Namecheap (domains, hosting) | Bitcoin via BitPay since 2013; added self-hosted BTCPay Server in 2020; reports 1.1 million BTCPay transactions and over $73 million in revenue from May 2020 to October 2024 | BTCPay itself does no KYC; a Reddit thread reports Namecheap asking crypto payers for KYC (unverified, user report) | BTCPay case study 2024-11-21; Namecheap KB; Reddit |
Gift-card platforms
Bitrefill sells gift cards, phone top-ups and eSIMs for bitcoin and other crypto. Its terms (updated 2026-09-30) set these purchase limits (Bitrefill terms):
| Account level | Identity needed | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| No account | None | $500 per day, $1,000 per month |
| Basic account | Account only | $2,000 per card, $5,000 per day, $10,000 per month |
| Verified account | Government photo ID, proof of address, live selfie | $2,000 per card, $10,000 per day, $50,000 per month |
Bitrefill "may require" KYC at any time and monitors use for compliance. Operating entities: Airfill Prepaid AB (Sweden), Airfill US LLC (Delaware) and Bitrefill S.A. de C.V. (El Salvador). Its regulatory registrations are not stated in the terms (unverified).
The BitPay app also sells brand gift cards for crypto (see the BitPay directory note above).
Luxury goods
| Merchant | Status | How | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gucci | Announced 2022-05-05: pilot in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas stores, with a plan for all North American stores; 12 cryptocurrencies including BTC; customer gets an emailed QR code | Processor reported as BitPay (unverified); current status not checked | The Paypers |
| TAG Heuer | June 2022, US online store only | BitPay; 12 coins; up to $10,000 per transaction | Europa Star |
| Ferrari | See Travel | BitPay | Inside Bitcoins |
| Jomashop, Ace Jewelers (watches, jewellery) | Listed in BitPay's directory | BitPay | BitPay directory |
Real estate
- Homes are almost always priced in dollars; "buying with bitcoin" usually means selling or borrowing against it at closing. Propy runs blockchain-recorded closings and on 2026-05-15 partnered with Milo so buyers can use bitcoin or ether as mortgage collateral (up to $25 million) instead of selling (news.bitcoin.com). Propy's escrow and title licensing and its buyer KYC are not described in that source (unverified).
- BitPay's directory has a "Real Estate" category (BitPay directory).
- Regulation: FinCEN's Residential Real Estate Rule (reports on non-financed transfers to entities and trusts, originally from 2026-03-01) was vacated on 2026-03-19 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; FinCEN has appealed, and filers currently need not submit reports (FinCEN RRE FAQs, read 2026-10-09).
Charities
| Charity / platform | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The Giving Block (crypto donation platform used by many US nonprofits) | Acquired by Shift4 on 2022-03-01; sends donors automatic email receipts for tax purposes | The Giving Block / Shift4 |
| Save the Children | Has a bitcoin donation page on its US site (page refused automated reading) (unverified detail) | savethechildren.org |
| Wikimedia Foundation | Accepted crypto from 2014 via BitPay; stopped after an editor vote of over 70% (announced about 2022-05-01). Crypto had brought $130,100 from 347 donors, 0.08% of revenue | Fortune 2022-05-02 |
| Mozilla Foundation | Took crypto via Coinbase (2014–2018), then BitPay; paused 2022-01-06; on 2022-06-27 decided to keep holding off "until further notice" | MozillaWiki |
Governments
El Salvador - 2021 Bitcoin Law: passed June 2021 (62 of 84 deputies), in force 2021-09-07. It made acceptance by businesses compulsory, allowed taxes to be paid in bitcoin, and launched the state Chivo wallet with a $30 sign-up bonus (Wikipedia, Bitcoin in El Salvador). - 2025 reform: approved by the Legislative Assembly on 2025-01-29 by 55 votes to 2 (Reason 2025-02-03; U.S. News 2025-01-29). Under the IMF's own description: private-sector acceptance becomes voluntary; taxes are paid only in U.S. dollars; public-sector bitcoin activity, transactions and purchases are confined; and the government will gradually unwind its role in Chivo. The IMF Board approved the 40-month, $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility on 2025-02-26 (IMF PR25/43). The decree is reported as Decreto No. 199 (unverified) (Ptycoin). - Contested: is bitcoin still "legal tender"? Reason reports that bitcoin is no longer called "currency" but remains "legal tender" (Reason). Ptycoin and Wikipedia (citing Dig.watch) say legal-tender status was removed (Ptycoin; Wikipedia). The IMF release does not use the phrase (IMF PR25/43). The decree text was not obtained, so this stays open.
Central African Republic: parliament voted bitcoin legal tender on 2022-04-22 (promulgated 2022-04-27) and agreed to repeal it in April 2023 (Wikipedia, Legality of cryptocurrency; no cited source on that page, so (unverified)).
Sub-national governments (all convert to their own currency; none holds bitcoin):
| Government | Since | How | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canton of Zug, Switzerland | February 2021 | BTC and ETH for cantonal taxes; limit CHF 1.5 million per payment (up from CHF 100,000 on 2023-03-01); Bitcoin Suisse AG runs the service, takes the exchange-rate risk and charges 1% | Kanton Zug |
| City of Lugano, Switzerland ("Plan ₿") | 2022 | All city dues and taxes payable in BTC and USDT; over 360 local merchants accept Bitcoin, USDT or the city's LVGA token | planb.lugano.ch |
| State of Colorado | 2022-09-01 | PayPal Cryptocurrencies Hub, PayPal personal accounts only; fee $1 + 1.83%; converted to dollars for the state | Colorado Dept. of Revenue |
| State of Louisiana | 2024-09-18 (first payment, Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries) | Bitcoin Lightning via Bead Pay; "The State of Louisiana will not handle cryptocurrency" | Bitcoin Magazine |
| City of Detroit | Announced 2024-11-08, live mid-2025 | PayPal; the city receives dollars only | BridgeDetroit |
Dating sites
What could be confirmed (checked 2026-10-09):
| Site | Finding | Source |
|---|---|---|
| OkCupid | Accepted bitcoin from April 2013 through a partnership with Coinbase, which said it would sell the coins for dollars daily. Stopped (date unknown): its help centre now lists credit card, debit card and PayPal for web subscriptions, and searches of the help centre for "bitcoin" and "crypto" return nothing | Y Combinator blog 2013-04-16; SiliconANGLE 2013-04-16; OkCupid help centre |
| Feeld | Does not accept crypto: "Feeld is only available through the App Store and Google Play Store … We don't offer alternative payment methods" | Feeld support |
| Dating.com | Its terms and conditions (about 48,000 characters) do not mention cryptocurrency | dating.com terms |
| Ashley Madison | A payment-methods directory (updated October 2026) lists cards and Revolut, no crypto; Ashley Madison's own billing page refused automated reading (unverified) | WhoAcceptsIt |
| Luxy | A December 2024 review describes plans and payment terms with no mention of crypto | DatingApps.com 2024-12-11 |
Claims that could not be confirmed: lists published by crypto businesses say Ashley Madison, Badoo, Luxy, SmartDates, Matchpool, DateCoin and BitLove accept bitcoin (NOWPayments blog 2026-03-16; HideYourCard), and a crypto directory lists Luxy, Dating.com and its sister sites (AmoLatina, YourTravelMates, ArabianDate, YourChristianDate, DateMyAge) and "Sugarvet" (Cryptwerk). NOWPayments is itself a crypto processor and HideYourCard sells gift cards; neither gives dates, processors or evidence, and the sites' own pages checked above do not show crypto. Treat these as (unverified).
Context: the main place Bitcoin and dating meet in public records is fraud, not payment. Feeld's help centre lists "They want to teach you about investing or making money, often crypto" as a romance-scam sign (updated 2025-03-15) (Feeld).
Dark-web markets — public record only
This section uses only law-enforcement press releases, court filings, academic papers and blockchain-analytics
reports. It contains no .onion addresses, mirror links or access details, and none were kept in the saved copies
(court filings that show an address are linked from the INDEX, not copied). Saved copies:
sources/darkweb-public-record/.
Market by market
| Market | Active (per public record) | Payment | How it ended | Bitcoin or crypto seized / forfeited (as reported) | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silk Road | January 2011 – October 2013 | Bitcoin only | Seized by the FBI in October 2013; operator Ross Ulbricht arrested in San Francisco; jury verdict on all seven counts on 2015-02-04 (the sentencing release says 2015-02-05); life sentence 2015-05-29, plus forfeiture of $183,961,921. Pardoned 2025-01-21. | 29,655 BTC from the Silk Road server (forfeited 2014-01-16); 144,336 BTC found on Ulbricht's computer hardware (seizure announced 2013-10-25); 69,370.22491543 BTC (plus matching BTG, BSV and BCH) seized 2020-11-03 from "Individual X", who had hacked Silk Road in 2012–2013; about 50,676 BTC seized 2021-11-09 from James Zhong, who stole them from Silk Road in September 2012 and pleaded guilty 2022-11-04 (the government sought forfeiture of about 51,680 BTC in all) | DOJ SDNY 2013-10-25, 2014-01-16, 2015-02-05, 2015-05-29, 2022-11-07; DOJ NDCA 2020-11-05; complaint No. 3:20-cv-07811 (N.D. Cal.) and U.S. v. Ulbricht Docs. 394, 394-1, 394-5 (saved); DOJ Pardon Attorney |
| Silk Road 2.0 | November 2013 – November 2014 | Bitcoin only | Operator Blake Benthall ("Defcon") arrested in San Francisco 2014-11-05 and charged in SDNY 2014-11-06; part of Europol's Operation Onymous (2014-11-06: 17 arrests, 410+ hidden services taken down) | Onymous overall: bitcoin worth about USD 1 million, EUR 180,000 cash, drugs, gold and silver. Silk Road 2.0 was doing about $8 million a month in sales with about 150,000 active users (September 2014) | DOJ SDNY 2014-11-06; Europol 2014-11-07 |
| AlphaBay | 2014 – July 2017 | Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum | Taken down 2017-07-04/05 (Operation Bayonet, FBI and DEA). Creator Alexandre Cazes arrested in Thailand 2017-07-05 and found dead in custody 2017-07-12; indicted in E.D. Cal. (1:17-cr-00144) on 2017-06-01 | "Millions of dollars" in cryptocurrency seized (no BTC count in the release); civil forfeiture complaint filed 2017-07-19. Over 200,000 users and 40,000 vendors; about USD 1 billion transacted since 2014 (Europol) | DOJ OPA 2017-07-20; Europol 2017-07-20; indictment and seizure banner (saved) |
| Hansa | to July 2017 | Bitcoin and other crypto | Dutch police covertly took over the market on 2017-06-20 and ran it for a month, collecting buyer data (about 10,000 foreign buyer addresses passed to Europol), then shut it 2017-07-20; two administrators arrested in Germany | Not stated in the release | Europol 2017-07-20 |
| Wall Street Market | about 2016 – April 2019 | Bitcoin and Monero | Administrators ran an exit scam (about $11 million) in April 2019; three German men arrested 2019-04-23/24; site shut by Germany's BKA; US charges filed in C.D. Cal. and E.D. Cal. | €550,000 cash plus bitcoin and Monero "in 6-digit amounts". About 1.15 million customer accounts and 5,400 vendors | DOJ OPA 2019-05-03; Europol 2019-05-03 |
| Silkkitie (Valhalla) | 2013 – early 2019 | — | Seized by Finnish Customs | "A significant Bitcoin seizure" | Europol 2019-05-03 |
| DarkMarket | to January 2021 | Bitcoin and Monero | Australian operator arrested in Germany; 20+ servers in Moldova and Ukraine seized (January 2021) | 4,650+ BTC and 12,800 XMR had moved through it (about €140 million); almost 500,000 users | Europol 2021-01-12 |
| Hydra (Russian-language) | about 2015 – April 2022 | Cryptocurrency; the indictment describes bitcoin cash-out listings and an in-house "Bitcoin Bank Mixer" | Servers seized in Germany by the BKA on 2022-04-05; same day the US Treasury sanctioned Hydra (OFAC) and DOJ charged server administrator Dmitry Pavlov | 543 BTC (about €23 million; DOJ and Treasury: "$25 million worth of bitcoin"). Hydra wallets received about $5.2 billion from 2016 to March 2022; about 80% of all darknet-market crypto transactions in 2021; turnover at least €1.23 billion in 2020 | DOJ OPA 2022-04-05; Treasury jy0701; BKA; Europol 2023-05-02; Pavlov indictment (linked only) |
| Monopoly Market | 2019 – December 2021 | Cryptocurrency | Infrastructure seized by Germany in December 2021; operator arrested in Vienna (November 2022), extradited to the US (June 2023); Operation SpecTor arrested 288 vendors and buyers (May 2023) | Not stated | Europol 2023-05-02 |
| Genesis Market (stolen logins and browser "fingerprints") | March 2018 – April 2023 | Not stated in the releases | Operation Cookie Monster, 2023-04-04/05 (FBI and Dutch police): 11 domains seized; 119 arrests and 208 searches worldwide | Not stated. Data from over 1.5 million infected computers and 80 million+ account credentials | DOJ OPA 2023-04-05; Europol 2023-04-05 |
| Empire Market | 2018-02-01 – 2020 | Cryptocurrency only | Owners Thomas Pavey and Raheim Hamilton charged in N.D. Ill. (2024-06-14); Hamilton sentenced to 40 years (the release dated 2026-10-07 says "Monday") | $75 million in crypto seized during the investigation; Hamilton agreed to forfeit about 1,230 BTC and 24.4 ETH, Pavey about 1,584 BTC. About 4 million transactions worth $430 million+ | DOJ NDIL 2024-06-14; 2026-10-07 |
| Incognito Market | October 2020 – March 2024 | Cryptocurrency | Owner Rui-Siang Lin arrested May 2024, pleaded guilty 2024-12-16, sentenced to 30 years (release 2026-02-03) | Over $105 million of narcotics sold; Lin collected over $6 million | DOJ SDNY 2026-02-03 |
| Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia, Kingdom Market | Dates not stated in the release | Cryptocurrency | Taken down (dates not stated); intelligence from them led to Operation RapTor (270 arrests, announced 2025-05-22) | RapTor: over €184 million in cash and cryptocurrencies | Europol 2025-05-22 |
| Archetyp Market | about 2020 – June 2025 | Not stated | Actions 2025-06-11 to 13 in five countries; German administrator arrested in Barcelona | €7.8 million in assets seized; 600,000+ users and at least €250 million in transactions | Europol 2025-06-16 |
Notes: - The 69,370 BTC case was traced by IRS-CI with help from Chainalysis and Excygent (DOJ NDCA 2020-11-05). - After Hydra, no market regained its dominance; Chainalysis says darknet markets and fraud shops received $1.7 billion in 2023, a rebound from 2022 but below 2021 (Chainalysis 2024-03-28).
What research says about the share of illicit use
| Study | Finding | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Christin, "Traveling the Silk Road" (arXiv 2012; WWW 2013) | Eight months of crawls (2011–2012): Silk Road sellers took a little over USD 1.2 million a month, the operator about $92,000 in commissions; overwhelmingly drugs | Peer-reviewed measurement (arXiv) |
| Soska & Christin, USENIX Security 2015 | 16 markets, 2013–2015: total sales up to $650,000 a day, generally $300,000–$500,000 a day; markets were "extremely resilient to takedowns and scams" | Peer-reviewed (USENIX) |
| Foley, Karlsen & Putniņš, Review of Financial Studies 32(5):1798–1853 (2019) | About one quarter of bitcoin users and about 46% of bitcoin transactions linked to illegal activity, about $76 billion a year; illegal share falls as mainstream use grows | Contested (EconPapers) |
| Makarov & Schoar, NBER Working Paper 29396 (October 2021) | Since 2015, 75% of real bitcoin volume is exchanges or exchange-like entities; "illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume." They argue Foley et al.'s method of classifying addresses by their neighbours "leads to significant overstatement of illegal volume." Also: the highest-volume counterparties of Hydra users were exchanges without KYC, including Binance and Huobi | Working paper, not peer-reviewed at the time (NBER) |
| Chainalysis, 2026 Crypto Crime Report (2026-01-08) | Illicit addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025 (all cryptocurrencies, not just bitcoin), under 1% of attributed volume; 2024 revised up from $40.9 billion to $57.2 billion; stablecoins were 84% of illicit volume; sanctions-linked flows (including Russia's A7A5 token) drove the jump. Chainalysis calls it a lower bound | Industry estimate (Chainalysis) |
| US DOJ (2022) | Hydra alone was about 80% of darknet-market crypto transactions in 2021 | Government statement (DOJ) |
Contested: the 46% and under-3% figures measure different things (share of transactions in Bitcoin's early years vs. share of economically meaningful volume after 2015) and use different address-labelling methods. Industry figures (Chainalysis) count only addresses already identified as illicit, so they understate; Foley et al.'s method may overstate. No source gives a settled number.
Contested or unverified claims, in one place
- El Salvador's legal-tender status after the 2025 reform: "remains legal tender" (Reason) vs. "removed" (Ptycoin, Wikipedia). Decree text not obtained.
- Illicit share of Bitcoin use: about 46% of transactions (Foley et al.) vs. under 3% of volume (Makarov & Schoar) vs. under 1% of all-crypto volume (Chainalysis).
- Dating sites "accepting Bitcoin": only OkCupid (2013) is documented; vendor lists are unconfirmed.
- BitPay directory listings include brands reached only through gift cards.
- Steak 'n Shake sales growth attributed to bitcoin is the company's claim.
- Tesla start date (February vs. March 2021); Gucci's processor (BitPay, unconfirmed); ExpressVPN (appears to have stopped; not confirmed by the company).
- Central African Republic dates come from a Wikipedia page with no cited source.
- Silk Road verdict date: 2015-02-04 per the DOJ conviction release ("found guilty yesterday", dated 2015-02-05); the sentencing release says 2015-02-05.
Gaps
- Licensing could not be confirmed for Bitrefill (Sweden or El Salvador), Travala, Propy (escrow/title) and Crypto.com Pay in the UAE; FinCEN's MSB registrant search was not queried for any business.
- No current status check for Overstock, Microsoft, Gucci and other early adopters.
- El Salvador's 2025 decree text and the IMF staff report were not obtained (imf.org refused automated downloads).
- Dating sites: Ashley Madison's and Badoo's own billing pages could not be read.
- The BKA's Hydra release could only be read through the fetch tool, so no verbatim copy is saved.
- Darknet-market revenue series by year (e.g. the 2021 peak) from Chainalysis or TRM Labs was not obtained beyond the 2023 figure.