In 2025, darknet marketplaces primarily accept Monero (XMR) and Bitcoin (BTC). Privacy-focused operators are shifting to Monero due to its default anonymity, compared to Bitcoin’s transparent ledger Darknet markets see BTC inflow drop to $2B. Abacus Market was launched in 2021 and now lists over 40,000 illicit goods, including hacking tools, counterfeit documents, and listings for drugs. In 2024, it recorded on-chain revenue of $43.3 million, a 183 per cent increase, driven by vendor migrations post-shutdown of competitors, according to Chainalysis’ 2023 market report Darknet revenue in 2023.
Australian customs being what it is (ie. a branch of the KGB), I wouldn’t take the chance of ordering internationally via the dark web. So my question is, are there a reasonable number of Aus-based vendors to make it worth my while? I haven’t taken the dark web plunge yet and am reluctant to get involved if it’s going to be a waste of my time.
Was Abacus Market Taken Down By Law Enforcement?
We are available 24/7 to answer your questions and guide you through the legal process. Finally, just as scammers go on the dark net posing as buyers, so too can the police. Peddling drugs through the dark web is becoming more attractive, especially for teens trying to make a quick, easy buck from the comfort of their own home. A place that used to be for only the savviest of hackers, the dark net has become the newest way to traffic drugs. An 18 year old Australian teen that was busted last September with close to $60,000 in drugs he bought from the dark web faced 25 years in prison for drug importing.
How Do We Review Darknet Markets? 🔎
Some dark web marketplaces even host content that’s not just illegal but extremely harmful, so it’s really important to understand the risks before diving in. The story of dark web marketplaces kicks off with Silk Road, launched in 2011. It was the first big site where people could anonymously buy drugs using Bitcoin, and it gained a lot of attention, until it was shut down by the FBI in 2013. We want to emphasize that we do not have any affiliation with any darknet markets. The information provided here is solely for educational purposes to promote understanding of these markets and their operations. The Australian darknet research is a study that was conducted by the Australian Crime Commission.
The Rise Of Monero Amid DNM Decline
“A global law enforcement operation coordinated by Europol has struck a major blow to the criminal underground, with 270 arrests of dark web vendors and buyers across ten countries,” Europol said on Thursday. Dark web monitoring is the AI-powered capability to monitor dark web marketplaces and paste sites at scale and detect unauthorized sharing or fraudulent monetization of customer data, account credentials, and PII. Combined with human intelligence, the dark web is a valuable source of threat intelligence. Almost all dark web marketplaces have implemented some sort of review system or trust rating for vendors, making it easy to keep track of which dark web vendors are honest and reliable. Vendors may offer to deploy cyber attacks against a specific target, steal data from a specific company or database, or create a customized fraud or malware program. Some are looking for illegal stuff they can’t buy elsewhere, like drugs or counterfeit documents.
World’s Biggest Dark Net Market Shuts As Rumours Swirl About What’s Next
This survey highlights active and recently shuttered markets with actionable metrics and intelligence for threat hunters, CISOs, and red team leaders. While not based in Australia, Abacus Market gained strong traction with local darknet users by embracing cultural references, supporting Australian vendors, and featuring a dedicated moderator from the region. These efforts helped it become one of the most active platforms among Australian users. In late June 2025, users began reporting withdrawal issues with Abacus Market, which typically indicates an impending exit scam. The marketplace’s administrator, known as ‘Vito’, responded on darkweb discussion forum Dread, claiming an influx of Archetyp users and a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack were the reasons for the issues.
MGM Grand Market
Meanwhile, Canberra had the second-highest average consumption of fentanyl and oxycodone. Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane, had a much lower average consumption of nicotine and other drugs. Another example of the biggest Australian state with drug problems is Victoria. Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, held the record for the second-highest consumption of heroin.
The Top 7 Dark Web Marketplaces In 2025
- Archetyp Market was dismantled in June 2025 during Operation Deep Sentinel in a coordinated raid across six countries.
- At the time, German authorities arrested the marketplace’s alleged operator and seized the site’s infrastructure, providing investigators across the world with a trove of evidence.
- ASAP is a tech nerd’s playground—accepting BTC, LTC, ZCash, and Monero, it’s got options for days.
- This signals a growing preference among darknet operators for obfuscation and anti-surveillance tools.
- After the transfer of Bitcoin or other payment types, the seller will offer various methods of delivery.
In our blog this week, we’re taking a deep dive into dark web vendors and their role in the underground economy. We’ll also explore how you can safeguard your organization against cyber threats by proactively monitoring illicit vendors and their activity on the dark web. Launched in September 2022, Torzon Market operates on the Tor network and features over 11,600 illegal products, including drugs and hacking tools. It enhances buyer transparency by importing vendor feedback with PGP proof. Torzon offers a premium account option for additional benefits and is valued at approximately $15 million, accepting payments in Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR).
Paying With Monero: A Quick Rundown
So lot of that stuff goes down, particularly in marriage bust-ups and stalkers. There’s one that’s actually designed to be completely anonymous, called darkcoin. With Bitcoin you can trace some of the transactions, so depending on which currencies are used it’s hard to do track and trace to find out where the money’s gone.
Anonymous postal boxes and accessing public Wi-Fi in cafes and libraries may not provide enough protection. Although bitcoins are extremely hard to trace, the vulnerability occurs when cash is turned into bitcoins or when they are converted back into cash. Arresting vendors often has a greater disruptive impact than taking down DNMs. When a marketplace is shut down, vendors can typically migrate to other platforms. But when a vendor is arrested, their activity is disrupted across every DNM they operate on. As a result, law enforcement has adopted an intelligence-led enforcement strategy incorporating DNM takedowns into longer-term investigations rather than treating them as end goals.
Picus Blue Report 2025 Is Here: 2X Increase In Password Cracking
This sort of stuff is a significant disrupter of criminal systems and the way crims do business. That’s why there’s a stereotype of mobsters and dealers living in Florida, with Picassos hanging on their walls. If they eventually get caught there’s nothing stopping their partner taking the art off the wall, selling it and walking away with the money. Technology used on a darknet is designed to just leave remnants, or no remnants at all, so the piece of software may run on a device for the length of the transaction and then not be found again. The other enabler, of course, is the maturation of info-space that allows these marketplaces not to exist in a physical place.
This signals a growing preference among darknet operators for obfuscation and anti-surveillance tools. Cryptocurrency-enabled drug sales also grew by over 19% from 2023 to 2024, reaching nearly USD 2.4 billion in volume. During the same period, the number of newly launched darknet marketplaces declined 42% year over year — indicating that while the ecosystem is consolidating, remaining actors may be becoming more operationally advanced.
Vortex Market
“Certainly the Australian Border Force has created a perception that they’re very good at intercepting drugs going in and out of the country,” he said. Shipping drugs internationally from Australia doesn’t carry as much risk as you would think, Dr Martin says. “Despite what we see in the news about an epidemic, there’s not really that many ice users in the country,” Dr Martin said. “Our drugs tend to be quite expensive in the international sense, so they’re not really competitive when we look at it compared to Europe or the United States.” Australia owns a sizeable chunk of the narcotics market on the dark web, according to new research released by the Australian Institute of Criminology.
