Crypto · August 22, 2025
Since TorZon Market launched, Monero (XMR) has been the recommended and most widely used payment method on the platform. Within the first six weeks of operation, over 90% of transactions were processed in XMR — a figure that has remained remarkably consistent. This article examines why the platform made this choice and what it means for users who rely on financial privacy.
The decision to prioritise Monero over Bitcoin reflects a clear-eyed assessment of the privacy limitations of each cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, despite being the most recognisable digital currency, operates on a completely transparent blockchain. Every transaction — the sending address, receiving address, amount, and timestamp — is permanently visible to anyone with an internet connection. Blockchain analysis firms have built billion-dollar businesses on the ability to trace Bitcoin transactions back to real identities via KYC exchange data.
Monero was designed from its 2014 inception specifically to address these transparency problems. Ring signatures blend the sender's transaction with a group of decoy transactions, making it cryptographically impossible to determine which key actually authorised the payment. Stealth addresses generate a unique one-time receiving address for each transaction, preventing external observers from linking multiple payments to the same recipient. RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) hides transaction amounts, so even the value transferred is invisible to blockchain observers. The result is a cryptocurrency where privacy is not optional or bolted-on — it is enforced by the protocol for every single transaction.
TorZon Market's XMR implementation uses subaddresses for deposit generation, meaning each user receives a unique deposit address for each transaction. This prevents address reuse — a privacy vulnerability in simpler cryptocurrency implementations. The platform's hot wallet management separates active deposits from the cold storage majority, reducing exposure from any single compromise. Withdrawals are processed via standard Monero transactions with no extra steps required from the user.
The platform strongly recommends that users obtain their XMR through no-KYC channels before depositing. Sending XMR purchased from a KYC exchange directly to the marketplace creates a traceable link between the user's verified identity and their darknet activity — one that Monero's on-chain privacy cannot eliminate if the acquisition point is already compromised. See our detailed XMR guide for privacy-preserving acquisition methods.
Bitcoin remains accepted on TorZon Market, and the platform does not plan to remove it. For users who have already CoinJoined their BTC through Wasabi Wallet or Samourai Whirlpool, the privacy level can be adequate for lower-risk use cases. However, the platform's documentation clearly recommends XMR as the default for all privacy-conscious users. Our BTC guide covers the additional steps required to use Bitcoin with reasonable privacy.