Russians are more likely than people in other countries to use cryptocurrency exchanges with low levels of verification or that do not require user identity confirmation, подсчитали analysts at Clain. Specialists link this to the popularity of banned services in the country, including the dark-net marketplace Hydra.
Experts describe exchanges that do not require identification as high-risk, because they are often used for illicit activity. In particular, darknet-market operations pass through them. In the course of the study, Clain analysed more than 200 such platforms.
By the end of 2020, the user base of high-risk exchanges stood at 350 million users. The volume of transactions on such platforms grew by 30% year over year and exceeded $19.7 billion. The volume of illicit transactions amounted to $4.2 billion, according to analysts.
Over the last year, the share of illicit transactions on high-risk exchanges was twelve times higher than on regulated platforms.
The flow of operations between darknet services and low-identification platforms in 2020 amounted to almost $798.5 million. Much of it originated from Hydra.
Michael Tretyak, partner at the Digital Rights Center, called the report data controversial. In a comment for ForkLog he noted that Clain defined the ‘jurisdiction of high-risk exchanges’ as ‘the country in which they are registered’.
‘I am not aware of any exchange registered in Russia and any cryptocurrency exchange registered in Russia, at least because even the currently discussed law On Digital Financial Assets does not even contain a definition of a digital currency exchange operator,’ Tretyak said.
Such figures likely reflect the popularity of services operating in the grey or black zones within the Russian Federation, he noted.
‘Do not think that the largest share (41.1%) of such operations in Russia is indeed so high simply because all Russians routinely deal with ‘black’ and ‘grey’ crypto,’ he stressed.
According to Chainalysis, in 2020 the total volume of cryptocurrency payments in the darknet amounted to $1.7 billion. The top three by turnover on the black market were Russia, the United States and Ukraine.
Chainalysis analysts also reported a reduction in 2020 in the volume of cryptocurrency transactions related to criminal activity.
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