Kraken DNM
Web3 / compliance
Kraken DNM is the largest Russian-language darknet marketplace as of mid-2026 and is unrelated to the legitimate US-based exchange of the same name. The market was launched in summer 2022 by operators affiliated with the WayAway forum, and on January 13, 2023 it executed a hostile takeover of its principal rival Solaris by compromising Solaris' GitLab and administrative infrastructure — absorbing roughly $150 million in vendor and customer liquidity overnight. The market is widely characterised in threat-intelligence reporting as pro-Kremlin in posture and operates primarily on the Tor network with Bitcoin and Monero settlement.
According to Global Ledger research cited by Chainalysis, Kraken DNM processed approximately $1.3 billion in Bitcoin between January and September 2025 — roughly 70 percent of the top-five Russian-language DNM cohort total and a footprint that exceeds Hydra's pre-takedown volume. As of June 2026 the platform remains operational, with no public OFAC, FCDO, or EU designation against the market entity itself, although associated infrastructure providers (notably the Aeza Group bulletproof hosting cluster) have been sanctioned.
Why It Matters
Kraken DNM is the single largest source of darknet-linked Bitcoin flows globally and the central node in the Russian-language DNM ecosystem. Any centralised exchange whose deposit address graph touches Kraken DNM-clustered wallets faces material sanctions and AML exposure, and Global Ledger has documented outflows from the top-five Russian DNMs reaching at least 20 licensed CEXs holding more than 130 international licences.
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