Whenever I glance at darknet forums, people there always use Telegram for instant messaging. This seems like a strange choice for their use case, considering that Telegram is neither secure nor private[1], being centralized with Russia-controlled servers[2], phone number registration, no encryption for personal chats by default in mobile client and no encryption at all in desktop client[3], etc.
So why do they use Telegram instead of actually secure and private alternatives, like Delta Chat, XMPP+OMEMO, etc.?
It’s hard to track
Only for an individual without significant resources.
But lots of companies provide Bitcoin tracing as-a-service
Look up Chainalysis, or ScoreChain, or TRM Labs, or Crystal Blockchain, or Merkle Science, or…
If someone uses a private wallet not on a website , it’s very hard to determine who they are and where they are sending or receiving money.
Virtually impossible. And There are things called washing machine services. (Aka tumbler)
Basically you send coins to it. It get mixed with other people’s coins. Then the coins are re distributed to a designated wallet.
These services usually charge a small fee.
This makes the money completely untraceable.
You can use the block chain to follow transactions but you can’t follow it after it’s split up and washed like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler