Agora Marketplace
3 min readMar 24, 2015

Are Darknet Marketplaces Waning?

Darknet marketplaces have been around for a long period of time and are host to millions of users. These platforms offer a chance to trade almost anything and you can find all legal and illegal items. The anonymity of the trade is enforced through the use of Tor browser and anonymous bitcoin transactions. The marketplace brings in buyers and sellers who trade anything from hard drugs to weapons. While these markets harbor transactions worth millions, users are often left in some scam exit losing their sales and money. Evolution exit scam is the latest to hit darknet society and Agora Marketplace is set for a high influx of traders. The real question users will be thinking of is the credibility of claimed trust darknet sites are supposed to manifest.

Increasing exit scams

It is hardly two years since Silk Road was closed, a feat that hit the darknet as biggest seizure ever done. The FBI had closed down black market’s biggest site and millions of dollars in bitcoin equivalent. This was received as a big blow although Agora Marketplace and Evolution had been gaining popularity. Both grew to massive sizes over 2014 to become two of the largest sites in black market. While Agora Marketplace has gained reputation through a wide variety of listing and strong security anonymity measures, Evolution became popular for many products and efficient anonymous escrow Bitcoin. In only one year, Evolution had surpassed almost all darknet sites including Silk Road 2.0 which was designed to reinstate the reputation and market share of the seized site. Darknet sites have been experiencing security bridges and hacking which result in loss of clients’ money, although most of them are often refunded. This was not the case for Evolution. The administrators allegedly closed the site on purpose making away with about 40,000 bitcoin which is approximately $12 million. This was no legal crackdown or closure, but rather a scam exit that left thousands of clients without their trading money.

Agora Marketplace and its position

Although the scam exit of EVO has angered many darknet traders who have even planned to search for the site’s admins, it will come as a boost for Agora. Agora Marketplace has been one of the largest darknet platforms and was comparable to the no more Evolution. The exit of their biggest competitor means Agora Marketplace will experience a high influx of traders. With black market, the demand for products never ends and seasoned traders will be looking for an alternative secure platform hoping Evolution is restored. Agora already has a huge community and there will be an obvious need to open a new darknet site. Evo is no more and clients are advised not to register into any scam using that name as people wait to see if they will be refunded. However, what’s obvious is that Evolution has gone away with an estimated $12 million of traders’ money and Agora is the next site to register to.

Conclusion

The Agora Marketplace enjoys remarkable reputation for their frequent security upgrades and anonymity measures. They have a large community and many product listings than any other site in the market. The community will only expand as Evolution users look for alternatives to recover their funds. Some clients lost as much as $50,000. The real reason for exit is yet to be known, although the speculation is that it was purposefully done by the administrators. Visit here to read more about Agora Marketplace.