The Internet’s biggest-ever black market just shut down amid a Telegram purge

Haowang Guarantee, a Telegram-based crypto crime marketplace also known as Huione Guarantee, announced it was shutting down after Telegram banned thousands of accounts and usernames that supported it. Elliptic, a crypto-tracing firm, reported that the market and its rebrand facilitated more than $24 billion in transactions by January, a figure it later put at $27 billion. Elliptic cofounder Tom Robinson called the takedown a huge win, though he said the operators of Xinbi Guarantee appear to be trying to relaunch on new Telegram channels and that Tudou Guarantee has seen a surge in new users.