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A darknet market is a commercial website on the
dark web The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...
that operates via
darknet A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social ne ...
s such as
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
or
I2P The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a mix network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic (by using ...
. They function primarily as black markets, selling or
broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...
ing transactions involving
drugs A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalat ...
, cyber-arms,
weapon A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...
s,
counterfeit currency Counterfeit money is currency produced without the legal sanction of a state or government, usually in a deliberate attempt to imitate that currency and so as to deceive its recipient. Producing or using counterfeit money is a form of fraud or ...
, stolen credit card details, forged documents, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, steroids, and other illicit goods as well as the sale of legal products. In December 2014, a study by Gareth Owen from the
University of Portsmouth The University of Portsmouth is a public university in Portsmouth, England. It is one of only four universities in the South East England, South East of England rated as Gold in the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework. With approximately 28 ...
suggested the second most popular sites on
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
were darknet markets. Following on from the model developed by
Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
, contemporary markets are characterized by their use of darknet anonymized access (typically
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
),
Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
or
Monero Monero (; Abbreviation: XMR) is a decentralized cryptocurrency. It uses a public distributed ledger with privacy-enhancing technologies that obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses t ...
payment with
escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
services, and
eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
-like vendor feedback systems.


History


1970s to 2011

Though
e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
on the dark web started around 2006, illicit goods were among the first items to be transacted using the
internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, when in the early 1970s students at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
used the
ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
to coordinate the purchase of
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
. By the end of the 1980s,
newsgroups A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...
like alt.drugs would become online centres of drug discussion and information; however, any related deals were arranged entirely off-site directly between individuals. With the development and popularization of the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
and e-commerce in the 1990s, the tools to discuss or conduct illicit transactions became more widely available. One of the better-known web-based drug forums, The Hive, launched in 1997, serving as an information sharing forum for practical drug synthesis and legal discussion. The Hive was featured in a
Dateline NBC ''Dateline NBC'' is a weekly American television news magazine/reality legal show that is broadcast on NBC. It was previously the network's flagship general interest news magazine, but now focuses mainly on true crime stories with only occasion ...
special called ''The "X" Files'' in 2001, bringing the subject into public discourse. From 2003, the "Research Chemical Mailing List" (RCML) would discuss sourcing "
Research Chemicals Research chemicals are chemical substances used by scientists for medical and scientific research purposes. One characteristic of a research chemical is that it is for laboratory research use only; a research chemical is not intended for human o ...
" from legal and grey sources as an alternative to forums such as alt.drugs.psychedelics. However
Operation Web Tryp Operation Web Tryp was a United States Drug Enforcement Administration operation that ended on July 21, 2004 with the arrests of 10 persons. Its purpose was to investigate web sites suspected of distribution of unscheduled, unregulated tryptamines ...
led to a series of website shut downs and arrests in this area. Since the year 2000, some of the emerging
cyber-arms industry The cyber-arms industry are the markets and associated events surrounding the sale of software exploits, zero-days, cyberweaponry, surveillance technologies, and related tools for perpetrating cyberattacks. The term may extend to both grey and bl ...
operates online, including the
Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
" Cyber-arms Bazaar", trafficking in the most powerful
crimeware Crimeware is a class of malware designed specifically to automate cybercrime. Crimeware (as distinct from spyware and adware) is designed to perpetrate identity theft through social engineering or technical stealth in order to access a comput ...
and
hacking tools A security hacker is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge ...
. In the 2000s, early
cybercrime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing the ...
and
carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving su ...
forums such as
ShadowCrew ShadowCrew was a cybercrime forum that operated under the domain name ShadowCrew.com between August 2002 and November 2004. Origins The concept of the ShadowCrew was developed in early 2002 during a series of chat sessions between Brett Johnso ...
experimented with drug wholesaling on a limited scale.
The Farmer's Market The Farmer's Market, formerly Adamflowers, was an online black market for illegal drugs. It was founded by Marc Peter Willems in or before 2006, and moved operations to the dark web in 2010 using the Tor anonymity network. It was closed and se ...
was launched in 2006 and moved onto Tor in 2010. In 2012, it was closed and several operators and users were arrested as a result of Operation Adam Bomb, a two-year investigation led by the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...
. It has been considered a "proto-Silk Road" but the use of payment services such as
PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
and
Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...
allowed law enforcement to trace payments and it was subsequently shut down by the FBI in 2012.


Silk Road and early markets

The first marketplace to use both Tor and Bitcoin escrow was
Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
, founded by
Ross Ulbricht Ross William Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network ...
under pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts" in February 2011. In June 2011,
Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...
published an article about the site, which led to "Internet buzz" and an increase in website traffic. This in turn led to political pressure from Senator
Chuck Schumer Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, and ...
on the US
DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...
and
Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
to shut it down, which they finally did in October 2013 after a lengthy investigation. Silk Road's use of all of Tor, Bitcoin escrow and feedback systems would set the standard for new darknet markets for the coming years. The shutdown was described by news site
DeepDotWeb DeepDotWeb was a news site dedicated to events in and surrounding the dark web featuring interviews and reviews about darknet markets, Tor hidden services, privacy, bitcoin, and related news. The website was seized on May 7, 2019, during an ...
as "the best advertising the dark net markets could have hoped for" following the proliferation of competing sites this caused, and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' predicted others would take over the market that Silk Road previously dominated. The months and years after Silk Road's closure were marked by a greatly increased number of shorter-lived markets as well as semi-regular law enforcement take downs, hacks, scams and voluntary closures.
Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
, the first site to accept
Litecoin Litecoin ( Abbreviation: LTC; sign: Ł) is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by Bitcoin, Litecoin was among the earliest altcoins, starting in October 201 ...
as well as Bitcoin, closed in September 2013, just prior to the Silk Road raid, leaving users just one week to withdraw any coins. In October 2013, Project Black Flag closed and stole their users' bitcoins in the panic shortly after Silk Road's shut down. Black Market Reloaded's popularity increased dramatically after the closure of Silk Road and Sheep Marketplace; however, in late November 2013, the owner of Black Market Reloaded announced that the website would be taken offline due to the unmanageable influx of new customers this caused.
Sheep Marketplace Sheep Marketplace was an anonymous marketplace set up as a Tor hidden service. It launched in March 2013 and was one of the lesser known sites to gain popularity with the well publicized closure of the Silk Road marketplace later that year. It ce ...
, which launched in March 2013, was one of the lesser known sites to gain popularity with Silk Road's closure. Not long after those events, in December 2013, it ceased operation after two Florida men stole $6 million worth of users'
Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
s.


Since Silk Road

From late 2013 through to 2014, new markets started launching with regularity, such as the Silk Road 2.0, run by the former Silk Road site administrators, as well as the
Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
marketplace. Such launches were not always a success; in February 2014
Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
, the highly anticipated market based on Black Market Reloaded, opened only to shut down 8 days later following rapid actions by Dutch law enforcement. February 2014 also marked the short lifespans of Black Goblin Market and CannabisRoad, two sites which closed after being demonized without much effort. November 2014 briefly shook the darknet market ecosystem, when
Operation Onymous Operation Onymous was an international law enforcement operation targeting darknet markets and other hidden services operating on the Tor network. Background Operation Onymous was formed as a joint law enforcement operation between the Federa ...
, executed by the United States'
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
and UK's
National Crime Agency The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and in ...
, led to the seizure of 27 hidden sites, including Silk Road 2.0, one of the largest markets at the time, as well 12 smaller markets and individual vendor sites. By September 2014,
Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
was reported to be the largest market, avoiding Operation Onymous, and has gone on to be the largest overall marketplace with more listings than the Silk Road at its height.Andy Greenberg
"Drug Market 'Agora' Replaces the Silk Road as King of the Dark Net".
''
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'', 2 September 2014.
2015 would feature market diversification and further developments around escrow and decentralization. In March 2015, the
Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
marketplace performed an "
exit scam An exit scam is a confidence trick where an established business stops shipping orders while receiving payment for new orders. If the entity had a good reputation, it could take some time before it is widely recognized that orders are not shipping ...
", stealing
escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
ed bitcoins worth $12 million, half of the ecosystem's listing market share at that time. The closure of Evolution led to a users redistributing to Black Bank and
Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
. However Black Bank, which captured 5% of the darknet market's listings, announced on May 18, 2015, its closure for "maintenance" before disappearing in a similar scam. Following these events commentators suggested that further market decentralization could be required, such as the service
OpenBazaar OpenBazaar is an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace. It uses cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket. History Ami ...
, in order to protect buyers and vendors from this risk in the future as well as more widespread support from "multi-sig" cryptocurrency payments. In April,
TheRealDeal TheRealDeal was a darknet website and a part of the cyber-arms industry reported to be selling code and zero-day software exploits. The creators claimed in an interview with DeepDotWeb that the site was founded in direct response to the numb ...
, the first open cyber-arms market for software exploits as well as drugs, launched to the interest of computer security experts. In May, varied
DDOS In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
attacks were performed against different markets including TheRealDeal. The market owners set up a
phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...
website to get the attacker's
password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...
, and subsequently revealed collaboration between the attacker and the administrator of Mr Nice Guy's market who was also planning to scam his users. This information was revealed to news site
DeepDotWeb DeepDotWeb was a news site dedicated to events in and surrounding the dark web featuring interviews and reviews about darknet markets, Tor hidden services, privacy, bitcoin, and related news. The website was seized on May 7, 2019, during an ...
. On July 31, the
Italian police Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
in conjunction with Europol shut down the
Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
darknet market seizing 11,254
Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
wallet addresses and 1 million euros. At the end of August, the leading marketplace
Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
announced its imminent temporary closure after reporting suspicious activity on their server, suspecting some kind of deanonymization bug in
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
. By October 2015,
AlphaBay AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation ...
was recognized as the largest market. From then on, through to 2016 there was a period of extended stability for the markets, until in April when the large Nucleus marketplace collapsed for unknown reasons, taking escrowed coins with it. On April 28, investigations into the Italian Darknet Community (IDC) forum-based marketplace led to a number of key arrests. In May 2017, the Bloomsfield Market closed after investigations in Slovakia inadvertently led to the arrests of its operators. Later that month, the long-lived Outlaw market closed down citing a major bitcoin
cryptocurrency wallet A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or a service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often al ...
theft; however, speculation remained that it was an exit scam. In July 2017, the markets experienced their largest disruptions since Operations Onymous, when Operation Bayonet culminated in coordinated multinational seizures of both the Hansa and leading
AlphaBay AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation ...
markets, sparking worldwide law enforcement investigations. The seizures brought in lots of traffic to other markets making TradeRoute and Dream Market the most popular markets at the time. In October 2017, TradeRoute exit-scammed shortly after being hacked and extorted. In June 2018, the digital security organization Digital Shadows reported that, due to the climate of fear and mistrust after the closure of AlphaBay and Hansa, darknet market activity was switching away from centralized marketplace websites and towards alternatives such as direct chat on
Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
, or decentralized marketplaces like
OpenBazaar OpenBazaar is an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace. It uses cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket. History Ami ...
. In 2019
Dream Market Dream Market was an online darknet market founded in late 2013. Dream Market operated on a hidden service of the Tor network, allowing online users to browse anonymously and securely while avoiding potential monitoring of traffic. The marketpl ...
was the most popular market by far, with over 120,000 current trade listings, followed at one time by Wall Street Market with under 10,000 listings. Dream Market was shut down in 2019, and Wall Street Market was seized by law enforcement in May 2019. The May 2019 seizure of news and links site
DeepDotWeb DeepDotWeb was a news site dedicated to events in and surrounding the dark web featuring interviews and reviews about darknet markets, Tor hidden services, privacy, bitcoin, and related news. The website was seized on May 7, 2019, during an ...
for conspiring with the markets created a temporary disruption around market navigation. In 2021, authorities have taken down the largest dark web marketplace
DarkMarket DarkMarket was an English-speaking internet cybercrime forum created by Renukanth Subramaniam in London that was shut down in 2008 after FBI agent J. Keith Mularski infiltrated it using the alias Master Splyntr, leading to more than 60 arrests ...
, along with arresting the Australian man who was believed to be the operator of the website. The 20 servers that hosted the website were seized. In August 2021, AlphaBay was relaunched after the return of one of the original security administrators DeSnake.


Market features


Search and discussion

One of the central
discussion forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
was
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
's /r/DarkNetMarkets/, which has been the subject of legal investigation, as well as the Tor-based discussion forum, The Hub. On March 21, 2018, Reddit administrators shut down the popular subreddit /r/DarkNetMarkets citing new changes to their content policy that forbids the sale of "Drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances". This led to the rise of Dread, the dedicated darknet discussion forum and the news site
Darknetlive Darknetlive is a news and information site covering darknet markets and other dark web activities. Regular topics include major drug dealer 'vendor' arrests, and all kinds of information surrounding darknet market activities and closures. A par ...
. Many market places maintain their own dedicated discussion forums and subreddits. The majority of the marketplaces are in English, but some are opening up in Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian. The dedicated market
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
Grams allowed the searching of multiple markets directly without login or registration.
Dark web The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...
news and review sites such as the former
DeepDotWeb DeepDotWeb was a news site dedicated to events in and surrounding the dark web featuring interviews and reviews about darknet markets, Tor hidden services, privacy, bitcoin, and related news. The website was seized on May 7, 2019, during an ...
, and
All Things Vice All Things Vice is a blog that was started in 2012 by Australian author and journalist Eileen Ormsby about news in the dark web. Since her investigations into the Silk Road in 2013, the darknet market led her to blog about various happenings in ...
provide exclusive interviews and commentary into the dynamic markets. Uptime and comparison services provide sources of information about active markets as well as suspected
scams A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have de ...
and
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
activity. Due to the decentralized nature of these markets,
phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...
and scam sites are often maliciously or accidentally referenced. After discovering the location of a market, a user must register on the site, sometimes with a referral link, after which they can browse listings. A further
PIN A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together. Pin or PIN may also refer to: Computers and technology * Personal identification number (PIN), to access a secured system ** PIN pad, a PIN entry device * PIN, a former Dutch ...
may be required to perform transactions, better protecting users against login credential compromise.


Customer interactions

Transactions typically use
Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
for payment, sometimes combined with
tumblers Tumbler may refer to: * Tumbler (glass), a type of glassware * Tumbler (pigeon), a pigeon breed * Tumbler (Project Xanadu), a unique identifier of a unit of text or an embedded link * Tumbler (surname), an extinct surname of British origin * ...
for added
anonymity Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
and
PGP PGP or Pgp may refer to: Science and technology * P-glycoprotein, a type of protein * Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort * Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records * Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...
to secure communications between buyers and vendors from being stored on the site itself. Many sites use Bitcoin multisig transactions to improve security and reduce dependency on the site's
escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
. The discontinued
Helix A helix () is a shape like a corkscrew or spiral staircase. It is a type of smooth space curve with tangent lines at a constant angle to a fixed axis. Helices are important in biology, as the DNA molecule is formed as two intertwined helices, ...
Bitcoin tumbler offered direct anonymized marketplace payment integrations. On making a purchase, the buyer must transfer
cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
into the site's
escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...
, after which a vendor dispatches their goods then claims the payment from the site. On receipt or non-receipt of the item users may leave
feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...
against the vendor's account. Buyers may "finalize early" (FE), releasing funds from escrow to the vendor prior to receiving their goods in order to expedite a transaction, but leave themselves vulnerable to fraud if they choose to do so. Following
Operation Onymous Operation Onymous was an international law enforcement operation targeting darknet markets and other hidden services operating on the Tor network. Background Operation Onymous was formed as a joint law enforcement operation between the Federa ...
, there was a substantial increase in
PGP PGP or Pgp may refer to: Science and technology * P-glycoprotein, a type of protein * Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort * Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records * Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...
support from vendors, with PGP use on two marketplaces near 90%. This suggests that law enforcement responses to cryptomarkets result in continued security innovations, thereby making markets more resilient to undercover law enforcement efforts.


Market types

Items on a typical centralized darknet market are listed from a range of vendors in an
eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
-like marketplace format. Virtually all such markets have advanced reputation, search and shipping features similar to
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
. By 2015 some of the most popular vendors had their own dedicated online shops separate from the large marketplaces. Individual sites had returned to operating on the clearnet, with mixed success. Some criminal internet forums such as the defunct
Tor Carding Forum The Tor Carding Forum (TCF) was a Tor (anonymity network), Tor-based Internet forum, forum specializing in the trade of Carding (fraud), stolen credit card details, identity theft and Counterfeit money, currency counterfeiting. The site was found ...
and the
Russian Anonymous Marketplace The Russian Anonymous Marketplace or RAMP was a Russian language forum with users selling a variety of drugs on the Dark Web. With over 14,000 members, the site uses Tor and uses some escrow features like Silk Road-like darknet markets, but ...
function as markets with trusted members providing escrow services, and users engaging in off-forum messaging. In May 2014 the "Deepify" service attempted to automate the process of setting up markets with a
SAAS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...
solution; however, this closed a short time later. Following repeated problems associated with centralized infrastructure, a number of
decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...
marketplace software alternatives were set up using blockchain or
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
technologies, including
OpenBazaar OpenBazaar is an open source project developing a protocol for e-commerce transactions in a fully decentralized marketplace. It uses cryptocurrencies as medium of exchange and was inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket. History Ami ...
and Bitmarkets,


Vendors

To list on a market, a
vendor In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these terms ...
may have undergone an application process via referral, proof of reputation from another market or given a cash deposit to the market. Many vendors list their wares on multiple markets, ensuring they retain their reputation even should a single market place close. Grams have launched "InfoDesk" to allow central content and identity management for vendors as well as
PGP PGP or Pgp may refer to: Science and technology * P-glycoprotein, a type of protein * Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort * Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records * Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...
key distribution. Meanwhile, individual law enforcement operations regularly investigate and arrest individual vendors and those purchasing significant quantities for personal use. A February 2016 report suggested that a quarter of all DNM purchases were for resale.


Products


Drugs

Whilst a great many products are sold, drugs dominate the numbers of listings, with the drugs including
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
,
MDMA 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly seen in Tablet (pharmacy), tablet form (ecstasy) and crystal form (molly or mandy), is a potent empathogen–entactogen with stimulant properties primarily used for Recreational dru ...
, modafinil,
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
, cocaine, and designer drugs.


Personal information

Personally identifying information Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
, financial information like credit card and bank account information, and medical data from medical data breaches is bought and sold, mostly in darknet markets but also in other
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
s. People increase the value of the stolen data by aggregating it with publicly available data, and sell it again for a profit, increasing the damage that can be done to the people whose data was stolen.


Fraud and hacking services

Cyber crime and hacking services for financial institutions and banks have also been offered over the dark web. Markets such as
AlphaBay Market AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation B ...
have hosted a significant share of the commercial
fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
market, featuring
carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving su ...
,
counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...
ing and many related services. Loyalty card information is also sold as it is easy to launder.


Prohibitions and restrictions

Many markets refuse to list weapons or
poisons Poison is a chemical substance that has a detrimental effect to life. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figuratively, with a broa ...
. Markets such as the original Silk Road would refuse to list anything where the "purpose is to harm or defraud, such as stolen credit cards, assassinations, and weapons of mass destruction". Later markets such as
Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
ban "child pornography, services related to murder/assassination/terrorism, prostitution, Ponzi schemes, and lotteries", but allow the wholesaling of credit card data. The market in firearms appears to attract extra attention from law enforcement, as does the selling of other weapons such as certain types of knives and blades.


Market operations

Nachash, former proprietor of
Doxbin Doxbin is a defunct onion service. It was a type of pastebin primarily used by people posting personal data (often referred to as ''doxing'') of any person of interest. Due to the illegal nature of much of the information it published (such ...
, wrote a guide in early 2015 entitled ''So, You Want To Be a Darknet Drug Lord ... Background research tasks included learning from past
drug lord A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin or narcotrafficker is a high-ranking crime boss who controls a sizable network of people involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly ...
s, researching legal matters, studying law enforcement agency tactics and obtaining legal representation. With regards to the prospective market's hosting, he recommends identifying a hosting country with gaps in their
mutual legal assistance treaty A mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) is an agreement between two or more countries for the purpose of gathering and exchanging information in an effort to enforce public or criminal laws. A mutual legal assistance request is commonly used to fo ...
with one's country of residence, avoiding overpriced
bulletproof hosting Bulletproof hosting (BPH) is technical infrastructure service provided by an Internet hosting service that is resilient to complaints of illicit activities, which serves criminal actors as a basic building block for streamlining various cybera ...
and choosing a
web host A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...
with
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
support that accepts suitably hard-to-trace payment. Patterns recommended to avoid include hiring
hitmen Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...
like
Dread Pirate Roberts The Dread Pirate Roberts is the identity assumed by several fictional characters in the novel ''The Princess Bride'' (1973) and its 1987 film adaptation. Various pirates (including Westley, the main protagonist) take on the role of Roberts and us ...
, and sharing
handles A handle is a part of, or attachment to, an object that allows it to be grasped and manipulated by hand. The design of each type of handle involves substantial ergonomic issues, even where these are dealt with intuitively or by following t ...
for software questions on sites like
Stack Exchange Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows th ...
. He advises on running a secured server operating system with a server-side transparent Tor proxy server, hardening web application configurations, Tor-based server administration, automated server
configuration management Configuration management (CM) is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. The CM proc ...
rebuild and secure destruction with frequent server relocation rather than a darknet managed hosting service. To protect against guard
node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines ...
deanonymization he recommends obfuscating traffic by investing in Tor relays which the market site will exclusively use. For a local machine configuration he recommends a computer purchased for cash running
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, using a local Tor transparent proxy. For
operations security Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, a ...
he suggests avoiding storing conversation logs, varying writing styles, avoiding mobile phone-based tracking and leaking false personal details to further obfuscate one's identity. Use of OTR and
PGP PGP or Pgp may refer to: Science and technology * P-glycoprotein, a type of protein * Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort * Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records * Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...
are recommended. He recommends verifying market employees carefully, and to weed out law enforcement infiltration through barium meal tests. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have expanded investigations of dark web markets,


Fraudulent markets

A large number of services pretend to be a legitimate vendor shop, or marketplace of some kind in order to defraud people. These include the notoriously unreliable gun stores, or even fake
assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
websites.


Exit scams

Centralized market escrow allows a market to close down and "
exit Exit(s) may refer to: Architecture and engineering * Door * Portal (architecture), an opening in the walls of a structure * Emergency exit * Overwing exit, a type of emergency exit on an airplane * Exit ramp, a feature of a road interchange ...
" with the buyer's and vendor's cryptocurrency at any time. This has happened on several occasions such as with BlackBank,
Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
, and Wall Street Market. Individual vendors often reach a point of reputation maturity whereby they have sold sufficient product reliably to have gained a significant reputation and accumulated escrowed funds; many may choose to exit with the funds rather than compete at the higher-volume higher-priced matured product level.


Commentary

In December 2014, an exhibition by Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo entitled "The Darknet: From Memes to Onionland" explored
Darknet A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social ne ...
culture. This featured a bot called the "Random Darknet Shopper" which spent $100 in BTC per week on products listed on
Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
. Their aim was to explore the ethical and philosophical implications of these markets, which, despite high-profile internationally co-ordinated raids, persist and flourish. James Martin's 2014 book ''Drugs on the Dark Net: How Cryptomarkets are Transforming the Global Trade in Illicit Drugs'' discusses some vendors who are even branding their opium or cocaine as "
fair trade Fair trade is an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and enviro ...
", " organic" or sourced from conflict-free zones. In June 2015 journalist
Jamie Bartlett James Bartlett (9 July 1966 – 23 May 2022) was a British-born South African actor best known for his role as the wicked puppet master, David Genaro, in '' Rhythm City'' and his theatre work. Career Television Bartlett was a well-known South ...
gave a
TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
about the state of the darknet market ecosystem as it stands today. According to 2014 studies by Martin Aldridge & Décary-Hétu and a January 2015 report from the Global Drug Policy Observatory, many
harm reduction Harm reduction, or harm minimization, refers to a range of public health policies designed to lessen the negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal. Harm reduction is used to de ...
trends have been spotted. These include the reduced risks associated with street dealing such as being offered
hard drugs Recreational drug use indicates the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime by modifying the perceptions and emotions of the user. When a ...
. The vendor feedback system provides accountability for risks of mixing and side effects and protection against scammers. Online forum communities provide information about safe drug use in an environment where users can anonymously ask questions. Some users report the online element having a moderating effect on their consumption due to the increased lead time ordering from the sites compared to street dealing. Professor for addiction research Heino Stöver notes that the shops can be seen as a political statement, advancing
drug legalization Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug ...
"from below". The results of these markets are higher quality and lower prices of psychoactive substances as well as a lower risk of violent incidents. A number of studies suggest that markets such as Silk Road may have helped users reduce the harm caused by illicit drug use, particularly compared with street-based drug marketplaces. Examples include the sale of high-quality products with low risk for contamination (including lacing and
cutting Cutting is the separation or opening of a physical object, into two or more portions, through the application of an acutely directed force. Implements commonly used for wikt:cut, cutting are the knife and saw, or in medicine and science the scal ...
), vendor-tested products, sharing of trip reports, and online discussion of harm reduction practices. Some health professionals such as "DoctorX" provide information, advice and drug-testing services on the darknet. The quality of products is attributed to the competition and transparency of darknet markets which involve user feedback and reputation features. Europol reported in December 2014, "We have lately seen a large amount of physical crime move online, at least the 'marketing' and delivery part of the business ... uyers canget the illegal commodity delivered risk-free to a place of their choice by the mailman or a courier, or maybe by drone in the future, and can pay with virtual currency and in full anonymity, without the police being able to identify either the buyer or the seller." In June 2015 the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) produced a report citing difficulties controlling virtual market places via darknet markets, social media and mobile apps. In August 2015 it was announced that
Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
now offers a dedicated Dark Web training program featuring technical information on Tor and
cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...
and simulated darknet market takedowns. In October 2015 the UK's
National Crime Agency The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and in ...
and
GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...
announced the formation of a "
Joint Operations Cell Joint Operations Cell is a unit of GCHQ, a British signals intelligence agency, and the National Crime Agency (NCA), a United Kingdom national law enforcement agency. It opened in November 2015 with the intention of tackling a range of crime on the ...
" to focus on cybercrime. In November 2015 this team would be tasked with tackling child exploitation on the dark web as well as other cybercrime. In February 2015, the EMCDDA produced another report citing the increased importance of customer service and reputation management in the marketplace, the reduced risk of violence and increased product purity. It estimated a quarter of all purchases were for resale and that the trend towards decentralization meant they are unlikely to be eliminated any time soon. A June 2016 report from the Global Drug Survey described how the markets are increasing in popularity, despite ongoing law enforcement action and scams. Other findings include consumers making purchases via friends operating
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
browser and
Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
payments, rather than directly. Access to markets in 79% of respondents' cases led to users trying a new type of drug.


Size of listings

The size of the darknet markets economy can be problematic to estimate. A study based on a combination of listing scrapes and feedback to estimate sales volume by researchers at
Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
captured some of the best data. A reviewed 2013 analysis put the Silk Road grossing $300,000 a day, extrapolating to over $100 million over a year. Subsequent data from later markets has significant gaps as well as complexities associated with analysing multiple marketplaces. * 18,174 – October 2013,
Digital Citizens Alliance The Digital Citizens Alliance is a United States non-profit organization focused on Internet safety issues. It releases reports focused on malware, credit card theft, online drug sales to teens, piracy, and overall Internet consumer safety. In 201 ...
, 13,472 of which were on Silk Road in November 2013 * 41,207 – April 2014 Digital Citizens Alliance * 33,985 – May 2014
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
via
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
* 43,175 – July 2014 a report by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
* 65,595 – August 2014 Digital Citizens Alliance * 51,755 – December 2014 Digital Citizens Alliance * 68,835 – March 2015 (before
Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
scam), Digital Citizens Alliance * 68,322 – April 2015 (after Evolution scam)
Digital Citizens Alliance The Digital Citizens Alliance is a United States non-profit organization focused on Internet safety issues. It releases reports focused on malware, credit card theft, online drug sales to teens, piracy, and overall Internet consumer safety. In 201 ...


In fiction

In the episode " eps2.3_logic-b0mb.hc" (ep. 5 of season 2) of the drama–thriller television series, ''
Mr. Robot ''Mr. Robot'' is an American drama thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder, clinical depression and dissociati ...
'', the protagonist, Elliot, is supposed to be repairing a Tor hidden site which turns out to be a darknet market called "Midland City" styled after the Silk Road for the sale of guns, sex trafficked women, rocket launchers, drugs and hitmen for hire. In the 2016 movie ''
Nerve A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons) in the peripheral nervous system. A nerve transmits electrical impulses. It is the basic unit of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the e ...
'' starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, the dark web plays a major role. In ''
Grand Theft Auto Online ''Grand Theft Auto Online'' is an online multiplayer action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 1 October 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, 18 November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xb ...
'', players who purchase warehouses and garages for illicit cargo and stolen cars can buy/steal and sell them through trade on the "SecuroServ" syndicate website. After the ''Biker DLC'', players can now purchase buildings for illegal drugs and counterfeit products manufacture, and distribute them through a darknet website called "The Open Road" where law enforcement cannot be notified of the player's trade. In the first arc of ''
Lupin the Third Part 5 ''Lupin the 3rd Part V: Misadventures in France'', also known simply as , is a Japanese anime television series produced at Telecom Animation Film, directed by Yūichirō Yano, and written by Ichirō Ōkouchi. Part of the ''Lupin III'' franch ...
'' anime series,
Arsène Lupin III is a fictional character created by Kazuhiko Kato aka Monkey Punch as the protagonist for his manga series ''Lupin III'', which debuted in '' Weekly Manga Action'' on August 10, 1967. According to his creator, Lupin is the grandson of Maurice ...
steals digital currency from the "Marco Polo" darknet market.


See also

*
Black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
*
Carding (fraud) Carding is a term describing the trafficking and unauthorized use of credit cards. The stolen credit cards or credit card numbers are then used to buy prepaid gift cards to cover up the tracks. Activities also encompass exploitation of persona ...
*
Crime forum A crime forum is a generic term for an Internet forum specialising in computer crime and Internet fraud activities such as hacking, Online Identity Theft, Phishing, Pharming, Malware Attacks or spamming. During the early days of the Internet publ ...
*
Cyber-arms industry The cyber-arms industry are the markets and associated events surrounding the sale of software exploits, zero-days, cyberweaponry, surveillance technologies, and related tools for perpetrating cyberattacks. The term may extend to both grey and bl ...
*
Deep Web (film) ''Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and the Silk Road'' is a 2015 documentary-film directed by Alex Winter, chronicling events surrounding Silk Road (marketplace), Silk Road, bitcoin and politics of the dark web. Covering the trial of Ross Ul ...
*
Drug liberalization Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug ...
*
Illegal drug trade The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...
*
List of Tor hidden services This is a categorized list of notable onion services (formerly, hidden services) accessible through the Tor anonymity network. Defunct services are marked as well as services with known only with deprecated v2 addresses are marked. Archive and ...


References

{{Cryptocurrencies Cyberpunk themes Illegal drug trade Crypto-anarchism