It’s no secret that the darknet markets are a hidden treasure trove of illicit goods and services. From illegal firearms to drugs, these markets provide a convenient and anonymous way for buyers and sellers to transact business.
While there are myriad best darknet markets, there are also plenty of ones that can dupe you.
It’s important to be careful when browsing these markets, as reputation is the key in this type of trading.
In this article you’re going to discover 15 best darknet markets that I appreciate the most.
Ares Market
Ares, founded in 2021, is a medium-sized darknet market created with custom elements. It has a unique website design that is moderately refreshing (as it runs in a dark mode theme by default). Security, Speed, Safety, and Anonymity are four pillars the Ares market has most focused upon.
It has over 7500 listings and claims to have 160 vendors and a customer base of over 14,000 members. It maintains ten market mirrors and has a traditional, simplistic captcha system. You can easily register on the website; you need a username and a password to start.
Unlike conventional markets, Ares does not ask you to fund a wallet-bound account. Ares Market is a wallet-less platform that supports completely direct payment by utilising an escrow system.
Ares’ vetting process requires that vendors have at least a two-year history as vendors on other marketplaces, a 95 percent positive response rate, and at least 500 completed sales.
Aares’ Direct Pay system provides a wallet-less option, so buyers don’t need to bear a pre-funded balance before making a purchase. Instead, money is sent to a defined address when an order is placed and is held by the market until the buyer finalises it.
Vendors with successful long-term histories are awarded FE status. Ares has both BTC and XMR support for payment. Buyers only need to register a refund address before ordering a product.
Archetyp Market
Archetyp is a drug and Monero-only darknet market that premiered in March 2020. The current inventory of Archetyp Market features around 850 listings, including Cannabis, Stimulants, Ecstasy, Opiates, etc., from 247 vendors, which makes it a small- to medium-sized darknet market.
Regardless of their backgrounds, Archetyp is the marketplace for vendors from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, and Australia. Archetyp’s statistics reveal that it has registered 355 vendors and 27,569 users.
It utilises a traditional wallet and escrow account, rendering it unworthy of direct pay or multi-sig solutions. Archetyp is a drug-only marketplace that is less crowded than other digital venues.
Examples of Archetyp’s innovation are its user-friendly site design, which is easily accessible, allowing everything needed to use the market to be within easy sight. The checkout process has also been re-engineered to direct users to lessen the chances of errors during orders. In addition, the night-themed website design makes it aesthetically pleasing.
Quest Market
Quest Market is new and has a more refreshing interface than most traditional markets. The market boasts around 2500 listings, including counterfeit items, CC dumps, IDs, Illicit goods, etc.
The market accepts payments via both Bitcoin and Monero. The fact that it makes payments without a wallet makes it more attractive. Quest allows vending at a fee of 0.01742562 BTC or 3.80170316 XMR.
Registration on the website is compulsory. In addition, the website also has good security and offers a mnemonic code to recover your account.
Kerberos Market
Launched in February 2022, the Kerberos market provides its users a graphically rich interface compared to many mainstream sites. Kerberos Market admins claim that the website is the first of its kind that uses multi-layer encrypted servers and services.
As a newer market, it only features 1200 listings at present. However, it still includes various features typical of darknet markets (such as account 2-FA and well-categorised listings). In addition, Kerberos accepts both XMR and BTC for payments.
Kerberos uses a graphically-intense design for their website, making it feel cluttered. The interface is set to night mode by default, and you will find it easy to navigate. Kerberos CAPTCHA systems are somewhat intriguing. They are distinctive and efficient at preventing bots, yet they are easy to solve.
The market states that the security they provide is “multi-layer encrypted,” and the developers provide a certain degree of direct discourse to convince users that the market is safer than competitors.
Kerberos is primarily focused on the UK, so make certain you can find a vendor who will ship to your location before making a deposit.
ASAP market
Launched in 2020, the ASAP market is known to be one of the biggest darknet markets. It was launched under the name of ASEAN Market, but it soon rebranded itself as an ASAP market.
ASAP has fewer than 6,000 listings, placing it at the smaller end of the darknet markets. Its layout and theme are pretty unique compared to other dark markets. The dark-themed user interface makes it quite appealing to the eyes.
ASAP is one of the very first places to offer SegWit support for wallets. Therefore, this allows you to save money when sending from a SegWit wallet, which is especially convenient during high transaction fees.
Here are some of the best features at the ASAP market.
Scam Hunter System: An algorithm utilised by the market to detect patterns of seller and buyer activity that indicate scams. Those caught utilising this system are excluded from participation and reported on online and discussion forums.
Fake Review Detector: This is a type of algorithm that helps prevent fake reviews in the marketplace.
Special Loyalty Program: Those who have already made substantial sales within the marketplace and have stayed loyal customers are considered for a specially designed program. This section is reserved exclusively for those who were invited.
ASAP offers a flexible commission schedule for vendors. New vendors will have to pay a 5% commission on every sale they make on the marketplace, but established vendors can pay as low as 2%.
The administrators of the ASAP market are quite active on Dread Forum, where they engage with customers, address their concerns, and solve issues they’re facing.
Incognito Market
Incognito is a smaller drug-only darknet market that launched in early 2021. It has a streamlined design and takes only a few minutes to sign up. Incognito is a conservative and rule-based market that boasts around 2100 listings, including items like Benzodiazepines, Cannabinoids, Dissociative etc.
To promote fairness, Incognito has implemented a random seed system to ensure random ordering of site listings each time a user signs into a new session.
They’ve prohibited the sale and distribution of all items related to fraud or malware and have stopped the sale of opiate drugs entirely, including oxycodone, heroin, and other related substances.
Unlike competitors, Incognito offers users online casino games. Some of the games offered by Incognito are Slots, Blackjack, Sic Bo, and Keno. You can easily place bets on these by using BTC and XMR.
Kingdom Market
Launched in 2021, Kingdom Market is relatively new and was recently vetted for listings on Dread, a popular forum for darknet markets. The market has a very intuitive user interface that makes it easy to navigate.
Kingdom Market has about 4000+ listings that include items such as Drugs, Services, Securities & Hosting, Miscellaneous, Jewellery etc. Unlike traditional markets that support fewer payment methods, Kingdom Market supports payments in BTC, XMR, ZCASH, and LTC.
Captcha systems at Kingdom Market may appear daunting and time-consuming at first, but soon enough, they’re quite simple. As always, before purchasing, you must paste the URL of the mirror you are visiting before logging in.
Before each login, you’ll have to respond to another captcha, which can be frustrating to new visitors and may even cause them to lose interest in the market.
Some popular features are missing, such as the ability to conduct direct payments for each order, BTC multisig payments support, and communicating with users via PGP encryption.
But, it covers this absence with some improved security functions that help users ensure they are not being phished.
Bohemia Darknet Market
Bohemia is a new darknet market that just recently began to gain traction, coinciding with the closure of the White House Market in August. The layout is highly intuitive and supports both Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) as payment methods.
The market design is one-of-a-kind at Bohemia, and the extra measures taken to supply a conventional darknet experience that attempts to incorporate features from other markets. Bohemia focuses on security and simplicity, placing more importance on protecting users’ data and Opsec.
Escrow and Finalising Early (FE) are the only payment options available. Users can access roughly 3,500 listings at Bohemia, mainly drugs and other illicit substances. The website is quite low on digital listings and has many underrepresented subcategories.
The Dread community of Bohemia is full of active vendors advertising their products, and the administrators are addressed with the latest developments.
AlphaBay Market
AlphaBay is a darknet market founded in March of 2014 by two administrators, alpha02 and DeSnake. At its peak, AlphaBay was responsible for over 40% of all darknet transactions. In July of 2017, AlphaBay was taken down by authorities, and its founder Alexandre Cazes aka alpha02, was arrested. The site had over 150,000 users and sold drugs, weapons, and other illicit items.
In August 2021, Alphaybay launched again with a new design instituted by DeSnake, the same administrator, to bring the market back to its peak history. Currently, Alphabay has only 330+ listings which are quite low in comparison with other markets.
AlphaBay has taken a rather pragmatic approach to its regulations by banning fentanyl-containing products and covid-related materials, and they usually prohibited items. Their ban on the sale and development of ransomware and related things is of utmost significance.
AlphaBay has restricted sales in CIS countries, including Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan.
The annoying aspect of the new AlphaBay is the CAPTCHAs and security filters that make it challenging to log in to (and stay logged into) the site, especially if you are the type who habitually crosses away for just a few seconds; you may be logged out, be required to solve another CAPTCHA and log in again.
Tor2Door Market
In The Tor2Door, you have the world at your disposal. Tor2door is the largest darknet market as of 2022 and has been in operation for fewer than two years, hosting a large catalogue of physical and digital products.
Tor2dor features a completely original style; Its administrators claim they coded it from scratch, which means Tor2Door has its unique feel. Developers made certain that it’s easy to use and set up.
The market is chock-full of about 10,000 listings, along with vendors providing shipping all around the globe. For users wishing to do payments through multisig escrow, the administrators have updated this option that makes it easy to use.
One of the best things about Tor2Door is its exchange feature, allowing users to convert between BTC and XMR easily. This feature is especially helpful for vendors who want to convert their earnings into a particular cryptocurrency before withdrawing.
Lowering the rate on vendor bonds (between $150 and $300) has proven highly successful for the Tor2Door marketplace. This has made the market in increasingly high demand among vendors seeking to locate a new home since the collapse of other marketplaces. Tor2Door has been praised for its secure environment and efficient means of transferring money.
Abacus Market
launched in 2019 under the name of Alphabet, Abacus underwent a re-branding effort in the middle of October 2021 to avoid being taken as confusion with AlphaBay.
It boasts over 20,000 listings, including many items such as drugs and pharmaceuticals. Additionally, it’s filled with an enormous selection of digital goods. Registering on the Abacus market takes a bit more work when compared to others, but it provides sufficient features to make seasoned market users feel at home.
Abacus is likewise compared to AlphaBay, which the founders state as the most attractive and easy-to-use layout on the dark web so far. At the same time, they assert that the market layout has been coded from scratch.
Although Abacus appears to have a lot in common with AlphaBay, but, it also has some modern advanced features, including support for XMR, BTC multi-signature transactions, and the ability to distinguish between different FE levels such as 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%.
Abacus Market has completely banned the sale of fentanyl and other usual banned items. They adhere to a fairly liberal policy about what merchandise they accept. They are one of the last big marketplaces to feature a large section on stolen data, including personal information, credit cards, and other data breaches.
It has numerous digital merchandise of all kinds, some of which are not readily available elsewhere. It also offers customer support 24/7.
WTN Market
WeTheNorth is a new darknet market for Canadians that was recently set up to replace CanadaHQ, a recently closed market. WeTheNorth seeks to create a safe environment where Canadians can access products with safety, privacy, and a level of safety and security not possible in the streets.
Since the WTN market launch, numerous vendors from Canada have come, and therefore the marketplace has thousands of listings. All important market-related text is also provided in French. Like many of its competitors, WeTheNorth features the typical AlphaBay-inspired layout that has served as the layout for countless darknet markets.
With sales of fentanyl and other outlawed substances suspended, WeTheNorth’s rules are flexible, enabling new vendors to enter the market and sell illicit substances.
WeTheNorth has a novel assortment of categories, such as the following: Fraud, Drugs & Chemicals, Guides & Tutorials, Counterfeit Items, Digital Products etc. These categories contain most of the market’s spam-esque listings. The Drugs category, in particular, features a few different vendors, with each just a handful of sales. Many of these are probably recognisable by users of the Canadian darknet market.
WeTheNorth follows the standard wallet system and supports both Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) payments, although some merchants will not accept both coins. For the time being, all transactions are routed through escrow, and no vendor has yet been granted FE privileges. Direct pay and multisig payment terms are not yet available.
DarkFox Market
Since its inception in 2020, DarkFox Market has attracted a wide assortment of sellers and expanded its operations, boasting an increased inventory and customer base in 2022.
DarkFox hosts about 7,000 listings from the usual categories, and Drugs account for 30% of the category’s total listings. The site’s search features work exceptionally well, and it is a well-organised and efficient way to filter through listings.
There’s no requirement to register on DarkFox Market. The registration procedure is uncomplicated, and no email address is required. In addition, DarkFox allows users to view the product listing without logging in. You can view not just the featured items but also the products in every category.
If you plan to sell items and become a vendor, you’ll have to put up an initial deposit of 150 dollars to become one.
DarkFox supports multisig and regular escrow, ensuring your deposit is safe and sound. Be aware that when depositing at the site wallet, you must deposit at least 0.0005 BTC, or you will lose your coins.
Nemesis Market
Nemesis combines the best attributes of the dark web’s previous incarnations and also features a unique market forum. It was relaunched in March 2022, allowing trusted individuals perusing the site to view offerings without needing to create an account. It is known to be completely oriented toward vendors and its community.
Nemesis has roughly 3,000 listings, placing it in the smaller category. Nemesis is one of the few markets with a category for fentanyl products. It also has many hacking- and fraud-related listings, including malware botnet listings, exploits, and even hacker-for-hire services.
For some, this may sound good, but it can be a red flag for the market as it can get them into the hands of law enforcement agencies.
Nemesis’ forum is much more central than its product and service listings and the community. The market conducts much of its interaction on this forum, allowing users to comment upon any updates made by administrators.
Featured listings on Nemesis can appear randomly whenever a category page is refreshed.
The number of advertisements is based upon a seller’s demonstrated reputation and capacity to promote Nemesis to outside clients.
Vendors appear to be concentrated in the UK and EU regions, though some are also located in the United States.
The latest version of Nemesis appears to be focused on serving vendors. Nemesis has recently introduced a 10-day auto-finalisation for physical orders and instant FE status for vendors with an average of 100 positive reviews.
In addition, Nemesis is now more focused on accepting vendors with positive reviews, which means new vendors may not be allowed to register.
The market now accepts both BTC and XMR as deposit options.
Vice City Market
Vice City Market is named after the 2002 instalment of a highly popular game series Grand Theft Auto Vice City. The market was launched in May 2020. It has a pleasing user interface that seems to have been built from scratch, giving great competition to many clone markets.
Vice City currently has approximately 7,000 listings, primarily including drugs and pharmaceuticals. That makes it one of the smallest markets, but it has had a significant rise in visitors during early 2022 and appears to be undergoing outstanding development.
Vice City has many EU-based vendors, but a few U.S.-based vendors also exist. Some vendors also provide shipping internationally, but it’s always smart to buy from local vendors when possible.
The market was configured to accept multiple cryptocurrencies, but for the time being, Bitcoin (BTC) is the only accepted deposit option. This raises a privacy concern for darknet shoppers who prefer not to have their purchases recorded by the blockchain.
But, Vice City supports multisignature (multisig) transactions, which cannot be done with privacy coins such as Monero. This is wonderful because, this way, no one in the market will still hold all their client’s money.