TRM Labs notes darknet shift to Monero, boosting its use.
Analysts at TRM Labs have observed a shift in trends within the darknet: illegal marketplaces are increasingly adopting the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero.
According to the report, nearly half of the shadow platforms launched in 2025 operated exclusively with this token.
Experts attribute this trend to the success of law enforcement in tracking Bitcoin and stablecoins. Under regulatory pressure, criminals are compelled to seek assets that are more challenging to link to real identities.
Interest in Monero is fueled by major incidents. In January, unknown individuals stole over $200 million from a cryptocurrency wallet and began converting the funds into XMR. According to Chainalysis, buyer pressure led to a 60% surge in the coin’s price in just four days, reaching a new all-time high.
Although the price corrected after the peak, Monero rose by 51% over the year, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of growth.
This growth occurred despite mass delistings of the asset on centralized platforms. After Binance and other major exchanges removed trading pairs with XMR, trading volumes shifted to decentralized platforms with less stringent listing rules.
Currently, Monero uses ring signatures, mixing the real transaction with 15 decoy inputs. This complicates, but does not make impossible, blockchain analysis.
Justin Ehrenhofer from NAXO commented to Bloomberg that agencies can use exchange withdrawal metadata to deanonymize users.
However, developers are preparing a major update — the implementation of Full-Chain Membership Proofs Development. This will increase the number of possible senders from 16 to millions. Paul Sibenik, head of CryptoForensic Investigators, believes the upgrade will render attempts to identify the real sender futile.
Supporters of the coin see the interest from criminals as confirmation of the technology’s effectiveness. XmrBazaar marketplace founder Douglas Tuman stated that wrongdoers choose XMR because it functions like “true untraceable digital cash.”
Monero developer Luke Parker emphasized that the project’s goal is to protect the right to privacy without oversight from banks and governments.
TRM Labs acknowledges the complexity of the situation. According to Ari Redbord, head of policy, the main challenge for the industry is to ensure privacy for law-abiding users without arming criminals.
Back in October 2025, Monero developers released the Flourine Fermi client (v0.18.4.3), which improved protection against so-called spy nodes.
