“When the biggest dark web market gets busted, the broken one is quickly replaced like shark teeth”

Ever wondered how much your stolen data is actually worth? Not to you, but in cold hard cash to the criminals who are buying it? The answer, according to the latest research of dark web marketplace pricing, would appear to be not a lot – and would be in cryptocurrency, not cash. This appears especially true if you’re from the US or the UK.

The dark web, the part of the internet that’s invisible to your average user and mainstream search engines, is home to many criminal marketplaces. Accessible through a Tor (The Onion Router) browser, these occasionally make the news when they get taken down by law enforcement. In January 2021, for example, the world’s largest such marketplace, DarkMarket, was taken offline following an operation that included the FBI, IRS, Europol and the UK National Crime Agency.

But behind the headline-hitting big names there are numerous smaller marketplaces trading in stolen data and, often, drugs and firearms as well. When the biggest gets busted, users will migrate to the one with the next highest trading volume and the broken one is quickly replaced like shark teeth. One recent report in Nature () found that individual marketplaces can appear fragile, but “coordinated