It may seem like everyone from Grandma to Goldman Sachs has piled into bitcoin in the past year, but there's at least one group that's looking for a way out: Criminals.
In the next six to 12 months, the most widely used digital coin is poised to lose its spot as a dominant payment method on the dark web, according to a study by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Its biggest competitors? Litecoin and Dash.
Transacting with bitcoin has become more expensive and less efficient as an influx of users has put strain on the network, leading to higher fees.
As a result, some cryptocurrency enthusiasts - including criminals, who were among bitcoin's earliest adopters - have resorted to other digital coins.
Bitcoin is still the gold standard for transactions in the illegal underworld, but it's losing ground to some of its crypto cousins, the study found. Litecoin, the sixth-most valuable digital currency, is now accepted by nearly one third of all dark-web vendors who take alternative payment methods. Dash, the 12th-biggest cryptocurrency, is accepted by 20 per cent of the market.
