Elliptic: Telegram-based crypto scam marketplaces like Tudou Guarantee have almost entirely filled the void left by Telegram banning the two biggest a month ago
Then it watched those markets rebuild to their previous size and has done nothing to stop them. — https://www.wired.com/... X: @elliptic : 🚨 Telegram dark markets expand to fill the gap left by Huione Guarantee In May, Telegram shut down Huione Guarantee — the largest dark market to have ever existed, responsible for more than $27 billion in USDT transactions — following research from Elliptic. Elliptic's [image]
Context & Ripple Effects
Telegram’s May account bans shut down Huione Guarantee, a market Elliptic had linked to more than $27 billion in USDT transactions, after research-driven enforcement against the service. The disruption followed reporting on other large Telegram-based scam-market infrastructure, including Xinbi Guarantee’s multibillion-dollar activity.
The rapid replacement of the banned services matters because it tests whether removing individual accounts can meaningfully disrupt a market whose buyers, sellers, and payment rails remain on the same messaging platform.
First-order effects
- Tudou Guarantee and similar channels absorb activity displaced by the two banned marketplaces, restoring access to scam-related services for their users.
- Telegram’s lack of further action leaves the rebuilt marketplaces operating despite the earlier mass bans.
Second-order effects
- The episode reduces the practical deterrent effect of one-off account takedowns: operators can re-form under new brands while retaining the platform and crypto-payment environment.
- Blockchain investigators and Telegram’s trust-and-safety operation face a moving target, with monitoring needing to identify successor networks rather than only known market names.
Third-order effects
- If replacement remains this fast, enforcement will increasingly hinge on disrupting the platform-level networks and payment flows that support these markets, not merely removing individual storefronts.
- The pattern points to a resilience problem for messaging-platform moderation: decentralized operator networks can preserve market capacity even when prominent services are removed.
The trend: This is one data point in the migration of crypto-enabled illicit commerce toward rapidly replaceable, messaging-platform-based marketplaces.