On-chain data recorded incoming USDT at Huione falling to near zero after the ban, while Tudou’s user count more than doubled, with inflows matching Huione’s pre-shutdown volumes.
Guarantee markets operate in Chinese on Telegram and settle exclusively in USDT. Vendors supply stolen data, money laundering pathways, and other services essential to large-scale online fraud.
The escrow model lets buyers and sellers resolve disputes without exposing real identities, and Tether’s dollar peg eliminates local currency volatility.
Observers sometimes confuse Huione Guarantee with Huione Pay, a Cambodia-based payment firm still processing large USDT volumes.
Elliptic tracked more than 30 active Guarantee markets and warned about fake venues that target inexperienced criminals.
Tudou led the post-shutdown surge, but smaller competitors also gained users as merchants duplicated listings across platforms.
The closure of the Huione Guarantee sent temporary shock waves through a network of hundreds of thousands of scammers, intermediaries, and brokers across Southeast Asia and China.
Elliptic’s data showed no enduring decline in overall Guarantee-market volume one month later, indicating that liquidity migrated swiftly to replacement channels.
The report concluded that coordinated, sustained, removals will be required to disrupt an ecosystem built on Telegram escrow and USDT settlements.
Huione Guarantee’s downfall disrupted one node, but the broader dark market structure continues to expand within the messaging app.
