Carder groups
We also measure privacy coin activity correlations in the communities where experienced hackers recruit beginners. Usually the stronger patterns are related to bitcoin (perhaps for convenience reasons, the crypto economy infrastructure and onramps/offramps are optimized for bitcoin, even if bitcoin is suboptimal in terms of anonymity), but we also seek to prove/disprove the hypothesis that privacy coins like Zcash and Monero are being adopted by such groups.
For instance, when studying the usage patterns in carding information sites such as Wickybay, we detect macro trends: Vietnam is emerging as a attention sink, but also communications modes such as messaging (WhatsApp) are on the rise. Figure 19th summarizes the attention flows, the darker tones in the links represent higher usage intensity. The first thing we note, is the multiplier effect: there are more outputs than inputs. But there are also micro economics in play: while inflows depict mainly the search for information services, outflows mainly occur toward places where people purchase items. The three different overlapping nodes establish that the point where the demand and supply of attention meet, is where newcomers buy information. This is relevant because it reveals a point of systemic weakness in the system, when a network intervention can be performed to reduce the infection rate.