New Digital Currency Spikes as Drug Dealers Get More Secrecy
- Two-year-old Monero has risen more than four-fold this month
- Crptocurrency gives more privacy to drug dealers, others
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Forget bitcoin. There’s a new digital currency that is surging as online drug-dealers begin adopting it to conduct business with more anonymity.
The two-year-old currency Monero has more than quadrupled this month after gaining support from prominent websites that anonymously peddle drugs. It spiked to as much as $10 on Sunday after AlphaBay, one of the most popular sites for buying drugs like liquid LSD and hybrid cannabis, said last week it will begin accepting the currency on Sept. 1. The total value of all Monero in circulation pushed past $100 million on Monday, up from about $25 million at the end of last month, according to coincap.io.