Telegram hosts largest crypto black market ever recorded, report finds

Telegram now runs the largest crypto black-market economy ever documented, with Chinese-speaking users transacting literally $2 billion every month.

According to an Elliptic’s investigation released this week, simple access to Telegram, the ability to relaunch banned channels, and Chinese-language moderation have replaced the technical barriers that once defined darknet crime.

Elliptic estimates that one of those markets, Huione Guarantee, moved $27 billion between 2021 and 2025.

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Scam markets on Telegram generate record monthly volumes

Elliptic identified two markets, Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee, as the current leaders of this system. Together, they enable close to $2 billion per month in crypto transactions tied to laundering services, stolen personal data, fake investment websites, and AI deepfake tools. The listings also include pregnancy surrogacy services and ads linked to teen prostitution.

These markets supply infrastructure to large-scale romance and investment scams known as pig butchering, which are run mainly from compounds in Southeast Asia. Thousands of trafficking victims are forced to work inside those compounds. The FBI estimates these scams take in about $10 billion a year from U.S. victims alone. By selling laundering and operational tools to those networks, Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee expanded at the same pace as the scams they support.

Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s cofounder and chief scientist, said that these markets are “the biggest ever recorded online.”

Bans fail as platforms and payment rails stay in place

In May, Telegram banned Huione Guarantee after it rebranded as Haowang Guarantee and was named as a money laundering operation by the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Tudou Guarantee, in which Haowang Guarantee holds a stake, expanded quickly, as Elliptic now tracks its activity at about $1.1 billion per month, compared with Haowang’s earlier level of $1.4 billion. Xinbi Guarantee reached around $850 million per month after being banned and relaunching.

In its statement, Telegram said it reviews cases individually and defends user privacy and financial autonomy. Analysts rejected that position. Elliptic and other observers said most activity on Tudou Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee is criminal.

Aside from scam services, the markets sell prostitution, including posts that suggest sex trafficking of minors through terms like “lolita” and “young girl.” The scam groups they serve are also widely linked to forced labor inside brutal compounds.

AlphaBay, once described by the FBI as ten times the size of Silk Road, processed only around $1 billion across two and a half years, while Hydra, a Russian market that also served ransomware groups and crypto thieves, handled more than $5 billion over seven years.

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