Using Venom to Flip the Coin and Peel the Onion: Measurement Tool and Dataset for Studying the Bitcoin - Dark Web Synergy

Lukas Olof Ingemarsson, Karl Duckert Karlsson, and Niklas Carlsson

Paper: Lukas Olof Ingemarsson, Karl Duckert Karlsson, and Niklas Carlsson, "Using Venom to Flip the Coin and Peel the Onion: Measurement Tool and Dataset for Studying the Bitcoin - Dark Web Synergy", Proc. ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY), Pittsburgh, PA , June 2025. (pdf)

Abstract: Bitcoin and the Dark Web present an interesting synergy that enables both legitimate anonymity and illicit activities, making it an important landscape to understand, especially as the Dark Web, with its hidden services, relies heavily on Bitcoin as a pseudonymous currency for transactions. However, a lack of scalable tools and timely datasets has limited systematic analysis of this ecosystem. To address this gap, we introduce Venom, a scalable framework for mapping Bitcoin activity on the Dark Web. Venom integrates multithreaded crawling, data extraction, and dataset generation, resulting in a comprehensive resource that allows us to easily collect snapshots of over 177,000 onion sites in roughly 24 hours. With the paper, we share both the tool and an example snapshot containing both per-site metadata and Bitcoin transaction data. Preliminary analysis reveals concentrated activity among key players and widespread content mirroring, offering new insights into the Dark Web's economic structure. Venom provides a critical resource for advancing research and monitoring in this domain.

The Venom data collection tool and datasets

To help build upon our work, below, we make available datasets and collection tools.

The dataset can be downloaded here [summary], here, and the Venom data collection tool here [github].

Citation format

When using the tool or dataset, please cite the conference version of the paper:

Lukas Olof Ingemarsson, Karl Duckert Karlsson, and Niklas Carlsson, "Using Venom to Flip the Coin and Peel the Onion: Measurement Tool and Dataset for Studying the Bitcoin - Dark Web Synergy", Proc. ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY), Pittsburgh, PA , June 2025. (pdf)