Criminal fallout: even the black market is having problems with BTC fees

Stolen credit card black marketplace Carder’s Paradise favours Litecoin now.

As many are aware, there exists a marketplace for illegal services and merchandise, such as stolen credit cards in the dark web, which is only accessible through the deep web—a somewhat forbidden underground world, a criminal’s paradise if you will, within the internet that search engines do not index for obvious reasons.

For most of Bitcoin’s existence, it has been associated with this dark world and is in fact one of the main arguments critics use to denounce cryptocurrencies, although, as we all know, any medium of value—even fiat can be used for illicit activities regardless.

However, as BTC transactions have become severely slow and expensive, it seems even the black market in the deep dark web is beginning to fallout with its almost decade-long payment method of choice. On the upside, BTC may just finally shake off its longstanding and infamous association with the black market and the dark web—the downside? They’re onto Litecoin now.

According to investigative reporter Brian Krebs, through his website krebsonsecurity, several major online black marketplaces are starting to boycott BTC in favour of less expensive transactions and lower minimum deposits. One such website is stolen credit card marketplace, Carder’s Paradise, which runs large botnets or pools of hacked computers that steal passwords and credentials and sells them.

Amid rising BTC transaction fees, Carder’s Paradise has issued a statement outlining the difficulties their business has been suffering in an effort to retain support of BTC as a payment method.

“We have to take additionally a ‘Deposit fee’ from all users who deposit in Bitcoins. This is the amount we spent on transferring your funds to our suppliers. To compensate your costs, we are going to reduce our prices, including credit cards for all users and offer you the better bitcoin exchange rate,” Carder’s Paradise wrote.

“The amount of the Deposit Fee depends on the load on the Bitcoin network. However, it stays the same regardless of the amount deposited. Deposits of 10$ and 1000$ attract the same deposit fee.”

And because of this, the dark web marketplace urges its patrons to opt for Litecoin instead.

“If the Bitcoin price continues increasing, this business is not going to be profitable for us anymore because all our revenue is going to be spent on the Bitcoin fees. We are no longer in possession of additional funds to improve the store.”

“We urge you to start using Litecoin as much as possible. Litecoin is a very fast and cheap way of depositing funds into the store. We are not going to charge any additional fees if you deposit Litecoins.”