It may just be a marketing gimmick, but when we see a marketplace claiming to be run all by women, we couldn’t stop ourselves from getting this DarkMarket review done.
Being honest, based on its first looks if it indeed in run by women I’d say those women have far excelled at running a Darknet market as compared to all other men-run marketplaces.
If you’ve never heard of DarkMarket before, what are the primary question you’d generally ask about a Darknet Marketplace? Those are the questions we’d try to answer throughout this DarkMarket review.
DarkMarket – An Eagle’s Eye View
Everything that we talk about, or is of importance throughout this piece has been summed up here to get you an Eagle’s-eye of the platform.
- Tor URL: http://darkmarketsomqvzqfjudpd6t5eabgvvpplrbtzq6prervyogenlrlqd.onion
- Total Products: 14368
- Total Users: 17919
- Total Vendors: 646
- 2-FA and PGP: Available.
- Vendor Transparency: Extreme.
- Registrations: Required.
- Payment Currencies: Bitcoin + Monero.
- Wallet-less: Yes.
Alternative Mirror:
- http://a3lfvi25b732nf4djou63nw7k4fnzwfe753gva6zxew2ygj3e43ff3ad.onion
- http://amjwi3ysvvfjjw4lcv3ql5xr2nqmdflksygxg26u35orfgp3zcyiu4ad.onion
- http://ir3cibe7j5bp3rhdffzxtnlgfxnnpvw2wbndluco2cuyzyhgkiwampid.onion
- http://qbim22o4xzp2veoea7hfikfltvhrqtlizabxupcu4fjoijb2tjugfzqd.onion
- http://zrvimpjbqffyeucrnfidkz3nyb7izhjyiuwdpjd5gwmgamxvzjti7qyd.onion
The marketplace as mentioned above is a registration-requiring marketplace so before you do anything, that’s mandatory.
What can be Bought on DarkMarket?
Not everyone lands on a Darknet Market purely for research purposes like we do. Most on the other hand are there to purchase products. The marketplace displays a public total product-count to be 14368. But which products exactly can be bought on Darknet Market?
To establish the same, we glanced at all the available products on the marketplace, and the following primary categories seem to be available:
- Digital Goods
- Drugs
- Services
- Security & Hosting
- Miscellaneous
- Fraud
- Counterfeit
- Software and Malware
- Carded Items
“Digital Goods” holds simple categories such as E-books, Serial keys, Software and Erotica. “Drugs” consists of a truck-load of sub-categories such as RCs, Stimulants, Cannabis, Benzos, Dissociative etc.
DarkMarket can also be used for various “Services”. While there are the traditional “hacking/ social engineering / carding” options, one unique service provided is of “Energy control”. The products in this sub-category however are pretty confusing and not of any one single type.
“Jewellery” too isn’t a very common category on darkweb marketplaces, however is available on Darkmarket. It only has two sub-categories namely “Gold” and “Silver”.
The other available products aren’t very unique, for e.g. every DNM (Darknet Market) in the world sells Counterfeit items, Guides, Fraud-related items, fake documents etc.
All in all, the product variety won’t be a disappointment on the marketplace.
Can you Sell on DarkMarket?
“Can” you? Yes. “Should” you? Absolutely no. DarkMarket is a marketplace just like Amazon or eBay, and hence acts as a mediator between buyers and sellers, seldom does it sell anything on its own.
Any user can create a DarkMarket profile and click on the “Become a Vendor” button from the profile page.
They’d then be prompted to deposit the vendor-fee. It’s currently priced at USD $99.00. Comparatively it’s cheaper than some other more popular marketplaces. Also after 6 months of experience on the marketplace, this bond can be waived.
Although note that vendors aren’t allowed to sell/trade in the following items:
- Child Porn
- Weapons
- Killing-Services.
- Human Trafficking
- Explosives/ Bomb-making items.
- Animal trafficking.
PGP key is required for all vendor accounts to be able to apply for a vendor account.
Do You need to Deposit Funds in Advance on DarkMarket?
Not exactly. While you do need to deposit funds in advance before receiving a product, note that the deposit is for each specific order.
Meaning you do not need to deposit a minimum amount to the marketplace wallet, neither do you need to deposit any funds if you aren’t ordering anything.
All deposits are only required at the exact time of ordering a product, on its checkout page. Each order has its own unique, new deposit address. This mode of payment on Darknet Markets is termed the “wallet-less” mode, and is more secure than the other mode which requires deposits to a central marketplace-wallet.
Can DarkMarket Vendors be Trusted?
It depends on the amount of transparency the marketplace provides about its vendors. Are the provided details enough to form a conclusion about the vendor and his/her legitimacy?
As far as DarkMarket goes, clicking on a vendor’s profile reveals the following data about its vendors:
- Number of Positive/Negative reviews.
- Joining Date.
- Number of disputes (Won Vs. Lost).
- Number of completed orders.
Clicking on “See all feedback” also shows the actual reviews from buyers for each specific vendor. This helps users understand the actual problem or benefit of the vendor (delivery/ quality / cooperation etc).
When these stats for a number of vendors are compared, the buyer gets a pretty good idea of which vendors to trust and which may be potential scammers.
So in a nutshell, no structure is secure by itself but it does have the transparency to let users verify the legitimacy of vendors independently.
What is the Order Policy on DarkMarket?
This DarkMarket review section covers the requirements and policies that DarkMarket adheres to when an order is paced.
Normal Escrow funds have a hold-period of 14 days (formerly set at 10 days). Meaning, once a vendor accepts an order the buyer has a 14-day period to inspect the goods, and finalize an order. If not, the payment is released after this 14-day period to the Vendor.
Finalize Early too is available for some trusted vendors, in which case the vendor would automatically receive the funds once an order is accepted. It should only be chosen when you trust the vendor and/or have some previous history with them.
All open orders, must be paid for within 48 hours of the order creation, or they expire. All orders (even disputed) can be accessed from “Profile > Purchases”.
The marketplace even allows users to “wishlist” items just like on clearnet e-commerce websites.
Can DarkMarket be Used without Bitcoin?
Yes. It’s a multi-currency Darknet Market. Being so, it accepts more than just Bitcoins. XMR (Monero) too is a currently-accepted Cryptocurrency and mode of payment.
The marketplace has also announced that they’ll soon be integrating other modes of payments on the platform.
Can I use BitMessage with DarkMarket?
You absolutely can. It’s one of the very few marketplaces out there which offers Bitmessage integrations.
A user can go to Profile > Bitmessage, and add his/her Bitmessage address. Once the address is confirmed the added address is where all the notifications from the marketplace are forwarded to.
Although it somewhat lessens the anonymity and security, and adds one more front to be covered for the users.
Is my DarkMarket Account Safe?
If you create an account on DarkMarket and are worried about its safety, you needn’t be. For starters, because the marketplace is wallet-less as mentioned in the earlier sections of this DarkMarket review, there are no “funds” for hackers to steal.
And even if there were, the 2-FA authentication if and when enabled makes it next to impossible for unauthorized personnel to gain access to the accounts.
We couldn’t find a “PIN” feature, but then again the PIN is mostly used to protect the funds stored in a marketplace wallet, which isn’t the case with DarkMarket. Hence, it’s not really a “lack of feature”.
The Escrow and vendor-transparency as mentioned earlier protect the users from scammers so there’s that.
Does DarkMarket offer Refunds?
It most certainly does. That’s why the Escrow is present. But we also said DarkMarket doesn’t have central wallets, so how do you get refunds?
Well users have the option of specifying their “refund addresses” in the user-profiles. This can be done for both the accepted Cryptocurrencies.
For all orders, refunds and other payments these are the addresses the funds are refunded to.
Note that refunds can also be availed after the 14-day period has passed, but purely on the vendor’s decision and if he/she is generous enough to consider your refund request.
Wrap Up:
Let’s discuss this DarkMarket review in a nutshell, its product-quantity is totally impressive, being wallet-less it’s secure and more trustworthy. Vendor profiles too are transparent.
Multi-currency support makes payments easier. The UI is no harder than using a Social network, however the product-categories have multiple overlaps from other categories.
The marketplace however does boast a filter-rich search panel. All in all, there’s not a lot to not like with DarkMarket. Do let us know if you’re on board with this DarkMarket review, or have your own opinion which differs from ours?
