The dark web itself is not illegal, but it’s largely connected with unscrupulous and illegal operations. It is used by many for buying or selling items that are prohibited on the regular internet, like fake IDs, illegal drugs, and stolen data. Alright, let’s get into the meat of it—the darknet markets that are ruling 2025. I’ve been poking around these places for a while now, from the giants like Abacus to the old-timers like Vice City.
- We do not engage with darknet markets; our mission is exclusively dedicated to providing information for research and educational purposes.
- The design is sleek and modern, with detailed seller profiles (4.7/5 average from 30,000+ reviews), real-time deal logs, and filters by category, price, and rating, making it a safe, user-friendly pick.
- It enhances buyer transparency by importing vendor feedback with PGP proof.
- The dark web is the most diverse platform for selling illegal digital products.
- It has an active forum and community along with an extensive user vetting process.
- To expand their reach, some marketplaces established parallel channels on Telegram.
Tor Averaged More Than 461 Million Daily Users In Q3 Of 2023
Torrez’s 1,500+ vendors—the second largest in our rankings—power its 30,000+ listings, rated 4.7/5 across 45,000+ reviews. Drugs (65%), digital goods (20%), and fraud tools (10%) dominate, with a 94% shipping reliability rate and 12-hour average response times. Disputes are low (2%), resolved in 36 hours for 90% of cases, backed by a 95% escrow success rate.
Abacus Market
Instead of using normal websites, these markets require special browsers like Tor that hide your location and identity. They use unique addresses that end with .onion, which are not available on search engines. Confused which darknet market to use after all the recent busts and exit scams? Don’t worry we’ve got you covered with this list of still active and here to stay markets updated for 2025 after the take down of Archetyp and the exit scam of Abacus.
Migration Of Criminal Activity Back To Dark Web Forums
As of 2023’s first quarter, top-quality malware sold for $4,500 per 1,000 installations. High-quality malware with a slightly lower success rate went for $1,500–$1,600 (depending on the target region), and medium-quality malware with a 70% success rate sold for up to $700. Finding verified dark web marketplaces is not as simple as searching on Google. Since these markets operate on the Tor network, they require .onion links that are not indexed by regular search engines. AlphaBay, at its peak, hosted over 400,000 users and $600 million in yearly volume until its 2017 takedown. Despite enforcement actions, such as Hydra’s 2022 closure with $5.2 billion in seizures, markets like Abacus and Torrez persist, leveraging decentralized systems and blockchain resilience.
Why It’s Unique:
While takedowns rarely eliminate operations, they force constant churn and reduce the longevity of large-scale hubs. For defenders, monitoring communication platforms has become as important as tracking marketplaces themselves. Serverless architectures, like ZeroNet, reduce single points of failure, making takedowns harder. User experience improvements include AI-driven search algorithms on Nexus, matching buyers with vendors based on past purchases.
Tor2door Market
This vetting process helps keep the community “clean” from spies, law enforcement, or anyone who might pose a risk. However, the dark web is so complex and vast that if law enforcement takes down one market, it pops up elsewhere. For instance, after the closure of Genesis Market, its website came back after a few weeks. If someone has the market’s code to the infrastructure, no matter how much effort law enforcement puts in, it will keep coming back on another server or can be built again with the same branding.
What Makes A Dark Web Market Different From Regular Online Stores?
In general, we have noticed an overall increase in the frequency of corporate database advertisements on the dark web. For example, on one popular forum, the corresponding number of posts in August-November 2024 increased by 40% in comparison with the same period last year, and peaked several times. Drainer developers are increasingly focused on serving their long-term clients, with most activity now conducted in invite-only channels.
Pakistan topped the list with 100 index points (maximum), followed by Kenya (89 points) and Myanmar (87 points). The top 10 also included Bangladesh (78), Ethiopia (75), Nepal (75), Cameroon (67), Tanzania (66), Nigeria (65), and Sri Lanka (63 index points). We offer a seamless, secure, and trusted experience tailored for the Canadian community. When visiting the dark web, use a secure browser like Tor, do not reveal any of your personal information, and don’t open suspicious files or links to stay safe. Alphabay Market achieved over 60,000 listings, leading the dark web with a vendor base of 3,000+.
Dread’s administrator, Hugbunter — who was in close contact with the Abacus team — believes Abacus’s disappearance was not the result of a law enforcement action. In some cases, such as Nemesis Market’s exit, official seizure notices have appeared months after a DNM has gone offline. Instead of disappearing, Hydra’s network simply adapted to a new medium, underscoring the difficulty of suppressing illicit commerce with infrastructure takedowns alone. Revenues for the fraud shops on the right side of the chart declined, suggesting their dependence on UAPS for payment infrastructure.
In this guide, we’ll break down the top dark web markets and how to stay safe while using them. Archetyp Market offers 28,000+ listings with a 6% market share and $3.5M monthly turnover. Supporting BTC and XMR, it boasts 95% vendor ratings, serving 12,000+ users. Bohemia maintains 22,000+ listings and $3M monthly BTC trades, with a 6% market foothold. Its 11,000+ users and 850+ vendors value its enduring stability since 2019.
Last year, DNM vendors sent a significantly higher portion of their funds to DeFi than they did historically. Throughout 2024, DNM vendors also sent far more value to personal wallets and stored funds on-chain. Many operators have since moved to accepting only Monero (XMR), a privacy coin with features designed to boost anonymity and reduce traceability. Historically, DNMs have been known for the illicit drug trade, but in recent years have differentiated themselves with unique service offerings.
One notable fact is that the site has changed its domain twice since its formation. Today, Exodus Marketplace works from 3 different domains, two of which are its mirrors.
Darknet marketplaces in 2025 illustrate a resilient and evolving underground economy. Major active platforms include Abacus, Russian Market, BriansClub, and Exodus. Law enforcement takedowns, such as Archetyp, demonstrate both impact and adversary adaptation. For cybersecurity professionals, focusing on payment methods, vendor migration, and marketplace specialisation offers the most effective path to actionable intelligence.
Back in 2020, this Russian-speaking marketplace was the world’s biggest darknet market. Worse yet, it was the largest marketplace for illegal drugs in all the countries of the former USSR. In April 2022, local authorities took down Hydra’s Germany-based servers and seized $25 million in Bitcoin.
These marketplaces offer everything from stolen data and exploit kits to illegal narcotics, weapons, and counterfeit documents, often transacted anonymously using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Monero. Monero and Bitcoin are two of the most commonly used digital currencies on the dark web markets. However, Monero, on the other hand, is untraceable and the most trusted payment method on these markets. Therefore, most cybersecurity experts recommend using Monero while shopping on darknet markets. Whether you want some pharmaceutical products (drugs) or digital items, you will probably find the products here, and that too at affordable prices. Vice City listens to the problems faced by its customers and vendors and solves them so that they can keep using the platform with ease.
