Canary Capital CEO Steven McClurg has thrown fuel on the long-running debate over privacy coins, branding Zcash’s latest rally a “pump and dump” which has been rug-pulled while promoting Litecoin as his preferred privacy asset for regulated markets.

Litecoin Better Than Zcash?

In a series of posts on X, McClurg said the Zcash surge that began roughly two months ago “triggered my curiosity.” After revisiting the project for the first time since 2016–2017, he wrote that he initially “bought into the Zcash narrative” but ultimately reached two conclusions.

“Litecoin has broader reach in terms of users, and MWEB an easier tool for selecting private wallets/transactions. It is my choice for privacy in US or UK due to compliance,” he argued. By contrast, “ZEC is a pump and dump getting ready to rug-pull. Be careful out there,” he posted last week via X.

Via X, McClurg followed up by highlighting Zcash’s sharp reversal on Monday. “Zcash [is] down 50% since this post. I hope people saw the post survived the rug pull. There is still further down to go,” he wrote, attributing the move to “a stunt by bad actors.” He did not name specific counterparties, venues or structures, and his language focused on market behavior rather than protocol design.

Despite the harsh assessment of recent trading, McClurg stressed that his criticism is not a rejection of Zcash as a technology. “Btw, I have nothing against ZEC, as it was the first currency with private/public option,” he said. In the same thread he described himself as “longterm bullish on Litecoin, Monero, Dash, and Zcash in that order,” explicitly placing ZEC last in his personal privacy stack but still on the list.

The distinction he draws hinges on how privacy is implemented and how that interacts with compliance. Litecoin’s MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB) design adds an optional confidential layer alongside the transparent base chain, allowing users to move coins into a separate privacy domain while leaving total supply auditable. That structure, plus Litecoin’s broader distribution and exchange support, underpins McClurg’s claim that LTC is “my choice for privacy in the US or UK.”

Pressed on Monero’s role, McClurg said he has not researched it “in several years” but that, based on earlier work, he “always felt that it would be the winning currency for people in authoritarian regimes. Pure privacy.” At the same time, he added that Monero is “unfortunately likely not compliant for US citizens (not that it shouldn’t be),” capturing the tension between default privacy and current regulatory expectations.

Zcash, with its dual transparent and shielded address system, historically sat between those two poles. McClurg’s comments suggest that, in his view, the recent ZEC rally and crash reflect structural weaknesses in how the market around the asset is behaving, even if the underlying cryptography remains important.

He closed by warning that he hopes “this stunt by bad actors didn’t damage the importance of privacy chains and privacy features,” underscoring that his target is speculative excess rather than the broader push for on-chain financial privacy.

At press time, ZEC traded at $324.

Law enforcement in Russia has blocked major sites on the dark web, including a carding market leader. The platforms have been seized amid ongoing investigations into hacking groups, with Russian authorities ramping up efforts to dismantle the cybercrime rings and detain their members.

Interior Ministry of Russia Hits Stolen Credit Cards Market

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD) has brought down four prominent websites operating on the dark web, blockchain forensics firm Elliptic has revealed. The sites have been blocked by Directorate “K”, MVD’s unit combatting computer-related crime.

The seized platforms are the Sky-Fraud forum, Trump’s Dumps, UAS Store, and Ferum Shop, which became the leading market for stolen credit cards after the largest marketplace in the niche, Unicc, was taken offline in January, the report details.

According to Elliptic’s estimate, the sites have collectively made more than $263 million in crypto sales denominated in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and litecoin (LTC) before they were shut down. Ferum accounts for the bulk of that amount with $256 million in bitcoin generated, or 17% of the carding market.

Trump’s Dumps, another website distributing compromised card data, has allegedly made around $4.1 million since its launch in 2017. Both sites were advertised on the on Sky-Fraud forum, where carding techniques and money laundering tips were among the main topics. Directorate “K” has apparently left a message in its source code, reading: “Which one of you is next?”

[#Russia] SKY-FRAUD & FERUM, famous Russian #carding forums closed by Russian authorities.

Authorities left an easter egg on the code source saying “WHICH ONE OF YOU IS NEXT?”#cybercrime #takedown #infosec #banking pic.twitter.com/RbNTkWPHIc

— Soufiane Tahiri (@S0ufi4n3) February 7, 2022

The fourth blocked website, UAS Store, was a platform offering stolen remote desktop protocol credentials that cybercriminals use to gain access to victims’ accounts from other devices. These breaches have increased during the Covid-19 pandemic as more employees are now working from home. Since late 2017, UAS Store has made around $3 million in cryptocurrency.

Elliptic notes that the latest seizures have been executed after the previous top carding marketplace, Unicc, and its affiliate proxy market Luxsocks, became inaccessible in mid-January. The seizures also came after the subsequent arrest of Unicc’s suspected administrator by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Researchers claim the crypto proceeds of the two platforms reached $372 million.

Meanwhile, the MVD has sought through a Moscow court the arrest of six unidentified hackers accused of “illegal circulation of means of payment.” Whether the group is linked to the closed-down dark web sites is not clear yet. Last month, FSB and MVD busted the notorious Revil ransomware group on a U.S. request, detaining 14 of its suspected members.

Do you think Russia will continue to crack down on dark web platforms and hacking groups? Tell us in the comments section below.