Drug Trends has been identifying, crawling (or “scraping”), extracting, classifying, and analyzing drug listings on the cryptocurrency market every week since February 1, 2014. This overview reports trends in the availability and types of substances sold on the internet via the cryptocurrency market. From February 1, 2014 to January 31, 2020.
General public accompanying Online interactive data visualization is available, allowing viewers to interact with the data collected over the entire monitoring period. The data displayed here consists of the number of listings and the number of vendors observed in a given week.
I have supplemented the data visualization below.
- Summary document outlining key findings from February 1, 2014 to January 31, 2020.and
- A methods document outlining the background to this program of work and the methods underlying the data presented.
Main findings
- During the monitoring period from February 1, 2014 to January 31, 2020, 63 virtual currency markets were monitored and 59 virtual currency markets were closed. The largest markets monitored are:
- Dream Market: Monitored from November 1, 2014 to March 28, 2019 (4 years, 4 months). At its peak, there were 68,179 drug listings and 2,823 vendors on the market (March 28, 2019).
- AlphaBay: Monitored from February 14, 2015 to July 1, 2017 (3 years, 5 months). At its peak, there were 27,115 drug listings and 1,805 vendors on the market (June 24, 2017).
- Empire Market: Monitored since April 18, 2019 (ongoing). At its peak, there were 31,620 drug listings and 1,780 vendors on the market (January 23, 2020).
- The average number of cannabis listings observed each week increased by 404% from 2,970 in February 2014 to 14,964 in January 2020. The average number of MDMA listings observed each week increased by 391% from 1,605 in February 2014 to 7,887 in January 2020.
- Despite the ephemeral nature of many crypto markets, from one year to the next (2015-2020), the average number of drug listings scraped per week in January was increased by 25%.
Use of data
Please note that the presentation of these data should include recognition of drug trends at the University of New South Wales National Drug and Alcohol Research Center.
Citation: Mathur, A., Man, N., Bruno, R., Barratt, M. J, Roxburgh, A., Van Buskirk, J., and Peacock, A. (2020). Overview of Crypto Market Monitoring for Pharmaceutical Listings, February 1, 2014 to January 31, 2020. Pharmaceutical trend breaking news series. Sydney: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney.
funding
Drug Trends is supported by the Australian Government under the Drug and Alcohol Program.
query
If you have any questions, please contact drugtrends@unsw.edu.au.
resource
author
Anant Mercer, Nicola Mann, Raimondo Bruno, Monica J. Barratt, Amanda Roxburgh, Jo Van Buskirk, Amy Peacock
