Telegram shuts down Huione - the largest Crypto Assets scam market in history, but competitors take over and achieve a volume surge of 400%.
Telegram closed the $2.7 billion Huione Crypto Assets scam market, but competitors saw a 400% surge in volume within weeks, with the "Potato Guarantee" platform rapidly attracting the criminal user base.
Telegram has shut down Huione Guarantee, the largest illegal trading market in history, which had a cumulative trading volume of over $27 billion. However, this action unexpectedly strengthened the dark web market - competing platforms saw a 400% surge in volume within a short period and quickly absorbed the expelled criminal user base.
According to a survey by the blockchain analysis company Elliptic, Telegram banned thousands of channels and accounts related to Huione on May 13, 2025.
But the successor platform "Tudou Guarantee" almost immediately took over the illegal activities that were transferred, handling a considerable volume of transactions within weeks after the market closed.
Elliptic has detected that more than 30 highly active collateral trading platforms in Southeast Asia continue to provide infrastructure support for money laundering, stolen data trading, and "pig butchering" scams.
How Huione Breeds and Spreads Under the "Hydra Effect"
The $27 billion Huione marketplace once operated as a complex criminal ecosystem, offering everything from forged documents and stolen personal data to money laundering services and employment threats through Telegram's encrypted infrastructure. The platform's tentacles go far beyond ordinary financial crimes, with links to human trafficking groups in places like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar masquerading as legitimate IT companies. Victims are forced to commit romance scams and cryptocurrency frauds in these organizations and are under constant surveillance. Huione is also accused of having ties to Cambodia's ruling elite and laundering money for the North Korean Lazarus group. This makes it a prime target for the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which in May 2025 designated the entire Huione group as a money laundering risk agency. The criminal company strategically acquired a 30% stake in Tudou Guarantee back in December 2024, effectively ensuring business continuity before enforcement action takes place. This advance layout allowed hundreds of thousands of users to migrate seamlessly. The size of the "potato guarantee" surged from a paltry level to more than 300,000 on June 15. Merchants previously operating through Huione quickly restarted their operations on Tudou Guarantee, offering the exact same services, including stolen data, money laundering tools, and a dedicated tool for "pig slaughter" scams targeting Western victims. In addition to the dominance of "potato safeguarding", multiple small platforms have also seen exponential growth due to the fragmentation and diversification of the criminal ecosystem. According to Elliptic, the number of users in the "Shuangying" market increased from 40,000 to 110,000, while the "Fully Light" market expanded from 20,000 to more than 80,000. These platforms utilize Telegram's encryption technology for communication and full business operations, including reputation management, order fulfillment, and dispute resolution between suppliers and customers. They also use Tether's USDT stablecoin as the primary medium of exchange, which provides the criminals with dollar-denominated stability while circumventing the traditional banking system. The United Nations estimates that Telegram-based criminal activity generates up to $36.5 billion in illicit proceeds annually through scams, money laundering and the sale of stolen data.
Telegram's encryption crime economy has caused ongoing law enforcement challenges.
While Telegram cooperated in deleting thousands of channels and banning accounts, Chainalysis' research revealed that Huione's core cryptocurrency processing infrastructure continues to operate, a conclusion confirmed by Elliptic. The platform simply migrated to a new domain and quietly resumed its presence on Telegram within weeks of what appeared to be its closure. This resilience stems from its complex architectural design, which separates the public-facing marketing infrastructure from the core financial processing system. This allows criminal activity to continue to run even when the most visible components are interfered with. The limited impact of this enforcement action is evident from the broader criminal ecosystem underpinned by Huione. For example, the platform forces human trafficking victims to participate in cryptocurrency scams in dens in Southeast Asia. These victims were initially lured to fake IT positions and subsequently imprisoned and forced to carry out fraudulent schemes. These entities operate (often masquerading as contact centers) to create a hybrid crime model that combines digital financial crime with traditional human trafficking, making comprehensive enforcement incredibly complex. This requires coordinated cooperation across multiple jurisdictions and crime categories. Although Telegram has begun to respond to the pressure by removing certain features and updating its content policies, its core encrypted communication capabilities are still attractive to criminals. They leverage technology's legitimate privacy protections to operate a complex marketplace ecosystem. The challenge for regulators is how to combat criminal abuse without compromising the privacy rights and communication security that crypto platforms provide to legitimate users around the world. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is also fighting the regulator. He was recently arrested and released on bail, but remains under surveillance.
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Reverse stacking BUFF? TG shuts down the Huione encryption scam market, competitors take over and achieve a 400% increase in volume!
Telegram shuts down Huione - the largest Crypto Assets scam market in history, but competitors take over and achieve a volume surge of 400%.
Telegram closed the $2.7 billion Huione Crypto Assets scam market, but competitors saw a 400% surge in volume within weeks, with the "Potato Guarantee" platform rapidly attracting the criminal user base.
Telegram has shut down Huione Guarantee, the largest illegal trading market in history, which had a cumulative trading volume of over $27 billion. However, this action unexpectedly strengthened the dark web market - competing platforms saw a 400% surge in volume within a short period and quickly absorbed the expelled criminal user base.
According to a survey by the blockchain analysis company Elliptic, Telegram banned thousands of channels and accounts related to Huione on May 13, 2025.
But the successor platform "Tudou Guarantee" almost immediately took over the illegal activities that were transferred, handling a considerable volume of transactions within weeks after the market closed.
Elliptic has detected that more than 30 highly active collateral trading platforms in Southeast Asia continue to provide infrastructure support for money laundering, stolen data trading, and "pig butchering" scams.
How Huione Breeds and Spreads Under the "Hydra Effect"
The $27 billion Huione marketplace once operated as a complex criminal ecosystem, offering everything from forged documents and stolen personal data to money laundering services and employment threats through Telegram's encrypted infrastructure. The platform's tentacles go far beyond ordinary financial crimes, with links to human trafficking groups in places like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar masquerading as legitimate IT companies. Victims are forced to commit romance scams and cryptocurrency frauds in these organizations and are under constant surveillance. Huione is also accused of having ties to Cambodia's ruling elite and laundering money for the North Korean Lazarus group. This makes it a prime target for the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which in May 2025 designated the entire Huione group as a money laundering risk agency. The criminal company strategically acquired a 30% stake in Tudou Guarantee back in December 2024, effectively ensuring business continuity before enforcement action takes place. This advance layout allowed hundreds of thousands of users to migrate seamlessly. The size of the "potato guarantee" surged from a paltry level to more than 300,000 on June 15. Merchants previously operating through Huione quickly restarted their operations on Tudou Guarantee, offering the exact same services, including stolen data, money laundering tools, and a dedicated tool for "pig slaughter" scams targeting Western victims. In addition to the dominance of "potato safeguarding", multiple small platforms have also seen exponential growth due to the fragmentation and diversification of the criminal ecosystem. According to Elliptic, the number of users in the "Shuangying" market increased from 40,000 to 110,000, while the "Fully Light" market expanded from 20,000 to more than 80,000. These platforms utilize Telegram's encryption technology for communication and full business operations, including reputation management, order fulfillment, and dispute resolution between suppliers and customers. They also use Tether's USDT stablecoin as the primary medium of exchange, which provides the criminals with dollar-denominated stability while circumventing the traditional banking system. The United Nations estimates that Telegram-based criminal activity generates up to $36.5 billion in illicit proceeds annually through scams, money laundering and the sale of stolen data.
Telegram's encryption crime economy has caused ongoing law enforcement challenges.
While Telegram cooperated in deleting thousands of channels and banning accounts, Chainalysis' research revealed that Huione's core cryptocurrency processing infrastructure continues to operate, a conclusion confirmed by Elliptic. The platform simply migrated to a new domain and quietly resumed its presence on Telegram within weeks of what appeared to be its closure. This resilience stems from its complex architectural design, which separates the public-facing marketing infrastructure from the core financial processing system. This allows criminal activity to continue to run even when the most visible components are interfered with. The limited impact of this enforcement action is evident from the broader criminal ecosystem underpinned by Huione. For example, the platform forces human trafficking victims to participate in cryptocurrency scams in dens in Southeast Asia. These victims were initially lured to fake IT positions and subsequently imprisoned and forced to carry out fraudulent schemes. These entities operate (often masquerading as contact centers) to create a hybrid crime model that combines digital financial crime with traditional human trafficking, making comprehensive enforcement incredibly complex. This requires coordinated cooperation across multiple jurisdictions and crime categories. Although Telegram has begun to respond to the pressure by removing certain features and updating its content policies, its core encrypted communication capabilities are still attractive to criminals. They leverage technology's legitimate privacy protections to operate a complex marketplace ecosystem. The challenge for regulators is how to combat criminal abuse without compromising the privacy rights and communication security that crypto platforms provide to legitimate users around the world. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is also fighting the regulator. He was recently arrested and released on bail, but remains under surveillance.