Data Driven Analysis of Darknet Market Network Based on Bitcoin Transaction Data

Abstract

In the past reason years, there are several research studies have been conducted to analyze the Darknet market network by using different approaches. However, from this research study, the novel approach has been presented to analyze the Darknet market network in order to investigate the dynamic behavior of the Darknet market network and the Darknet market users. The novel approach has been presented by introducing the analysis for the Darknet market network by using Bitcoin transaction data. The analysis has been presented in three phases by exploiting the graph models that have been constructed from the Bitcoin transaction data of the seven Darknet markets. Those seven Darknet markets are Abraxas Darknet market, Bluesky Darknet market, Cannabis Darknet market, Middle Earth Darknet market, Nucleus Darknet market, Pandora Darknet market, Sheep Darknet market. In the first analysis phase, the overall Darknet markets behavior has been addressed by analyzing the transaction flow and the money flow of all Darknet markets. In this phase, the properties like inactiveness of the darknet markets have been discussed and derived conclusions based on overall Darknet markets behaviors. In the second analysis phase, the analysis of the Darknet market has been addressed by exploiting the two graph models (Transaction graphs and User graphs) which constructed from Darknet market Bitcoin transaction data. The analysis has been conducted by measuring the connectivity in each Darknet market network and addressing the centrality measurements. In this phase, the conclusions based on scale-free networks and rich-get-richer properties have been addressed based on the graph models. In the final phase, the main concern will be addressing the traceability analysis of the Darknet market users. In this phase, our approach has been succeeded to trace 1203 user entities inside the Darknet market networks. Additionally, the behavior of those user entities have been addressed according to the Darknet market transactions.