Alphabay is one of the largest deep web market operating both as a Tor network and onion service since 2014. Where thousands of criminals anonymously bought & sold drugs, hacking tools, weapons and, stolen identities, and a host of other illegal goods and services. The darknet market is the absolute source of heroin and Fentanyl, which have become the major cause of death in the US.
In July 2017, Alphabay unexpectedly went offline and was suspected of an exit scam. Although, after a few days, it was exposed that authorities had seized the market during Bayonet, and alpha02, known as Alexander Cazes, was caught.
In August 2021, Alphabay was relaunched by DeSnake for business with a new design and interface but verified by PGP and was once again planning to become the biggest dark web market in history. So let’s learn what makes this Marketplace massive on the darknet.
Note: This article is only for informational purposes. Don’t go off buying/selling illegally on this market.
About Alphabay Marketplace
Alphabay started its operation in 2014 and steadily grew, with around 14,000 new users in the first 90 days of operation. In October 2015, it was known as the largest online darknet market. After some time, the market has announced incorporated digital contracts and escrow systems.
In 2017, Alphabay was seized by authorities for an exit scam. At the time of its demise, the site had more than 250,000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals and more than 100,000 listings for fraudulent and stolen identification documents, malware, counterfeit goods, computer hacking tools, firearms, and other fraudulent services.
After 4 or 5 years, old administrators from the market decided to work together to re-launch the Alphabay market again. So the market returns with a better user interface, which can be accessed via the Tor network or I2P. To gain users’ trust, the admins decided to use the original PGP keys used on the original Alphabay market.
Now, the market is noteworthy in the darknet world for accepting another cryptocurrency in addition to Bitcoin, support for Monero, supposedly more anonymous.
Alphabay Market Features
The most common features of the Alphabay Marketplace are:
1. AlphaGuard
it secures the wallets of both buyers and sellers in case of police raids on all servers by offering them the opportunity to finish escrows, disputes, and withdraw funds. When you register, you are presented with a key that is for you only.
2. Automated Dispute Resolver
Unlike other marketplaces, we have the Automatic Dispute Resolver system to accelerate the dispute process. It is used between buyers and sellers as they send proposals in case of disputes. For instance, refund percentage, replacement/reship, extending escrow, and more without a human moderator.
3. Advanced Trust
Advanced Trust is a system for buyers and sellers and a review system for both. Sellers can set trust levels on their listings to ensure they deal with real customers who have proven themselves and have great feedback.
4. Discount System on Listings
Vendors can put discount percentages depending on the amount purchased. The system will automatically compute and apply the discounts for the buyer.
5. Default Profile Privacy For Consumers
When a person makes a purchase, all of your details, like how many orders you have done, how many were doubtful, and comments/feedback from other sellers whom you have purchased from, will be accessible to the vendor. Although, it will be available only before the seller decides to take your order, not after. So in this way, the market secures the consumer details from prying eyes.
6. Vendor Shared Account Access
If you have been on this market earlier as a seller, you would recognize this very useful feature. It lets adding more employees or partners to reply as you do your orders etc., without you having to compromise account security.
7. Autodispatch Listings
This feature allows sellers to post hundreds of items& once the buyer purchases it, it will directly take that data & give it to the customer without any interaction needed. Customers can buy as many items as they need as long as the seller has that much in stock in their Autodispatch listing.
8. Clone Listings
Alphabay is another useful feature that allows sellers to make copies of their existing offers with a single tap.
9. Monero
Alphabay is the first largest Marketplace in the 2014-2017 period to introduce Monero as a payment option. Now, it has become the trend, and the market has decided to only use Monero for purchases on the Marketplace for both user and seller security & privacy.
10. Internal Monero Mixer
Despite what any cryptocurrency provides regarding untracebaility or privacy, the great way to unlink coins to you has always been an off-chain mixer. Alphabay guarantees when you deposit or withdraw, any of your funds will never be traced back to your Wallet’s identity of deposits even if some day Monero is broken.
11. PGP Communication Option
This option is accessible to both buyers and sellers. All communication is forced to be PGP, such as buyer notes, when enabled. However, the Auto encrypt option vanishes, and if the buyer/seller is not posting a PGP encrypted message, it cannot be enabled. Sellers who allow this option also get a high ranking in search.
12. Direct Pay
Alphabay allows paying per order/invoice. You don’t have to use a custodial wallet with us. Instead, you can send your payment directly to the escrow address and enjoy a fixed purchase price for six hours.
Precautions Before Accessing AlbhaBay Market
It’s not good to access a darknet market without the proper security. First, ensure you are untraceable before you land on the market. Here’s how you can do it:
- Turn on the Tor security option from standard to safest.
- Install NordVPN and link to its “Onion over Tor” servers. This is an additional protection layer.
- Ensure no other apps are running in the background when accessing Tor.
Alphabay Market User Interface
The user interface of the darknet market is easy and quite powerful, similar to the past Alphabay market. The website has a standard header or top bar functioning on it to be examined.
AlphaBay Market has maintained the conventional block format introduced in Silk Road 1.0. This mainly refers to the listings on the left side of the screen and the links to significant sections in the upper panel.
The section below the top panel is reserved for the search bar, which is conveniently situated, and the rest of the space is used to show the promoted products on the market.
On the left of the site page are Alphabay markets related to classes, huge level thing search, and seller search. The page font size attracts attention as much as possible because they are agreeable to the eye and presented in an amazing color scheme.
How to Register an Account on Alphabay Market
There is a single official Alphabay market URL, which undoubtedly has some kind of Captcha that must be solved before the login page can be reached, and users are cited in a queue if there is currently high traffic. The Captcha is a bit tough, and if you fail three times in a row, a popup appears with the message “Captcha failed so many times, try again in 30 seconds with a new identity.”
For this, you just have to tap the new identity (broom) option on the Tor browser and re-visit the Alphabay URL. Once you have managed to solve the Captcha, you will move to the main login screen. Here you’ll see the “Login” option that says “Not registered,” so register here.
- Go to the registration page.
- Keep in mind that your “Name” is what other individuals in the market see you as, whereas “username” is your login requirement; enter alongside your password. And select upper/ lower case letters and numbers to make your password strong.
- After entering the PIN and answering the manual human test, your selection is completed.
After signing in, you’ll be welcomed with a special notice containing your account’s wallet recovery key. You can use the key to regain access if you get locked out of your account or Wallet.
Now, save the details and read the Alphabay rules; once you have read all the rules, tap the button that says “I agree & understand the rules” I have saved the details above. After completing its guidelines, tap this button to see the main market page.
How to Make Payments in AlphaBay
Alphabay only supports Monero (XMR) as a currency for payments. Before buying anything, the users will have to deposit Monero (XMR). It’s suggested only to deposit enough XMR for one order at a time.
The deposit address can be found by tapping the Monero balance under the sign-in name toward the screen’s upper-right corner. Now, you must read the details displayed about how the market transaction system works.
Move down until the Captcha is seen & the button which says “I agree with & understand the instructions” Gets Monero address. When the Captcha is solved, hit the button, and your XMR deposit address will be generated.
One deposit can only be made using each address, so it is suggested not to make numerous deposits to the same address. Once the deposit is made, it will be shown in the account balance after 10 confirmations, which is usually within 30 minutes. Then, a new deposit address will be generated.
When you tap on the bar button below, the address will disclose a PGP-signed message from AlphaBay, which holds the address in it. This is how the user will confirm that the deposit address belongs to the market & not a phishing site.
Explore the shopping options of Marketplace
To check the products available for sale on the Alphabay market, tap on a category and then on a subcategory when suitable. The most well-known categories and sub-categories are:
- Hacking & Spam (Exploits, Scripts, and Hacking Tools)
- Drugs & Chemicals (Ecstasy, Prescription, Psychedelics, Stimulants, Cannabis, Hashish, Benzos, Psychedelics, Dissociatives, and Opioids).
- Fraud (Accounts and Bank Drops, personal info, CVV & cards).
- Tutorials & guides (Fraud guides, anonymity guides, and security).
- Undeniable level products and counterfeit items.
Users can see and learn advanced details about the product, including sold, product pictures, ship to/from info, payment types accepted, purchase price, and shipping options. Additionally, there are tabs for the product description, vendor’s refund policy, and feedback left by buyers.
How to Place an Order on Alphabay Market
However, placing an order is quite simple once you select an item. Then set the shipping option and quantity. Price will be displayed in XMR. Hit the “Buy now” option to continue.
When you scroll down, you’ll see the market’s rules, which is the seller’s PGP key. The buyer should import this key into their PGP application as they will use it to encrypt shipping details for their order.
Meanwhile, below is the vendor’s refund policy, chased by a text box into which the user can paste their encrypted shipping details. Verify the purchase button to proceed. The total order will be abstracted from the account balance, and the vendor will start preparing the order for shipping. The user has 7 days from the purchase to mark the order as received before it is automatically finalized.
If they don’t get the order within this time, the auto-finalization time can be expanded. And Alphabay suggests never finalizing the order before receiving it. However, disputes need the seller to respond within 3 days. If the vendor doesn’t respond, the buyer’s payments will be refunded back to their account.
Customers Who Buy From New Alphabay May Consider Following
If we talk about other marketplaces, AlphaBay claims to be more secure and quicker for all parties involved. But following the market’s foundation laid on the lessons learned from running a successful market place probably true.
However, the AlphaBay escrow service preserves your funds until the transaction is concluded and the seller is paid. It’s regarded as an amazing consumer protocol to seal a sale. When you get an item and verify that it fulfills your expectations, then the next step.
Before the transaction is automatically accomplished, the buyer has seven days to state that it has been received. Unless you are using an FE-allowed vendor, but if not, the payment should complete after the seller marks it as shipped (no vendors currently provide this option). And the market suggests never completing an order before getting it.
Whenever a dispute happens, buyers and sellers arrive at an agreement using Alphabay’s automatic dispute resolution technology. It doesn’t even need the presence of a moderator. According to Alphabay, the new strategy “basically consists of extending the duration of escrow, portion refund, replacement choices or entire return.
Moreover, the seller has 3 business days to respond. If the seller doesn’t respond, the client gets compensation. We suggest you only do business with reputable vendors with a good record.
What is Prohibited to Sell on Alphabay Market?
People assume they can buy every illegal thing in the darknet market, but this is a huge misconception. But alphabay has set some rules concerning products forbidden for sale, violation of which is punished by blocking the market.
- NO fentanyl or fentanyl-laced/based substances
- You cannot find any Covid-19 vaccines/cures or vaccines of any sort.
- Harming others will cost you some damage.
- Weapons are not in the listing, and users are not allowed to talk about guns.
- NO terrorism-related products, services, or propaganda
- Products, services, or propaganda related to terrorism are not allowed.
- No content related to sexual material, pornography, or any form of eroticism, whether it is soft or explicit.
However, many other dark web markets do not prohibit selling illegal things, which alphabay prohibited.
Policies for Vendors on Alphabay Market
Alphabay market support both new and existing vendors. The charge of 1.5 XMR is needed to acquire a vendor bond. The fee for the seller’s bond is non-refundable. Remember, if you are unsure that you wish to start your business on the darknet, particularly the alphabay market.
The only necessities for sellers on the alphabay market are set out in the global rules; if you are a beginner, self-control will be stricter since no one is sure of your status and reputation. Though, if you are a reliable seller, you will feel a little freer, but you also risk being penalized for violating rules.
Verdict
Alphabay market is one of the most honorable markets and was considered the best, as it first introduced the auto shop, the first to add Monero, and has the biggest number of listings in the history of the dark web.
We would say that this is a very reliable and commendable market at the moment. The assortment of products, security measures, filtering options, and vendor guidelines are remarkable, positioning it as a top-tier darknet market.
DeSnake manages to bring back the site with a strict security policy. But we still suggest you use the VPN for 100% anonymity.
