BriansClub remains a long-standing credit card data shop since at least 2014. Despite a 2019 breach that exposed over 26 million credit cards, it continues to operate, indicating sustained trust in its data pipelines. Hacked social media accounts are evidence that cybercriminals have a diverse appetite for Dark Web data products.

Darknet market revenues rose slightly, but have yet to regain Hydra Marketplace highs

The anonymity and encryption provided in dark markets create a haven for cybercriminals and nation-state actors to buy and sell dangerous assets while evading detection. Our results also support recent recommendations of paying attention to individual sellers rather than entire DWMs40. Law enforcement agencies, however, have only recently started targeting individual sellers. The first operation took place in 2018 and successfully led to the arrest of 35 sellers41, while the largest operation to date occurred in 2020 and led to 179 arrests in six different countries42.

Top Darknet Marketplaces

Likewise, law enforcement agencies each day continue to fine-tune their strategies to get past these networks. The first thing on the minds of many users when it comes to the dark web environment is illegal drugs. In fact, the Guardian referred to darknet markets as “the eBay of drug dealing,” and rightly so, illegal drugs are found in almost all the shops on the dark web. The raw dataset consists in transactions between Bitcoin addresses, which is initially preprocessed by Chainalysis Inc. (see Section S2). The resulting dataset consists in transactions between entities, that group together clusters of Bitcoin addresses.

EU Unveils Cybersecurity Overhaul with Proposed Update to Cybersecurity Act

Finally, we ran a small sample order on each to time escrow release and support response. All numbers are rounded; darknet telemetry is noisy and markets change weekly. Established in 2019, Russian Market is a well-known and highly regarded data store on the dark web, specializing in the sale of PII and various forms of stolen data. Despite its name, the marketplace operates primarily in English and serves a global audience. It has gained a reputation for being a reliable source of high-quality data for cybercriminals. Based on our observations from analysis on dark web data using Lunar, we’ve identified the top 7 marketplaces on the dark web in 2025.

The Rise of Darknet Markets: A Secure and Innovative Trading Ecosystem

During our tests for the research, we were able to register with a bogus email and a random username. All that one can expect from a deep web marketplace when it comes to anonymity and security. Each takedown affects the wider ecosystem by spreading distrust across other marketplaces. As a result, platforms fragment, rebrand, or disappear faster after major enforcement actions. U.S. Treasury and FinCEN advisories describe how illicit cryptocurrency services help criminals move ransomware and fraud proceeds. This data enables account takeover attacks across email, social media, and corporate tools.

User Reviews and Complaints

As of April 22, 2025, open‑source monitoring counted 9,000+ listings across drugs, fraud, counterfeit documents, malware, and “how‑to” guides. The site emphasizes on‑platform interactions and cryptocurrency settlement. Catharsis Market is described by community trackers as an active, general-purpose darknet marketplace with a strong focus on narcotics and other illicit goods. It operates on the Tor network and, according to self-reported claims, supports Bitcoin, Monero, and Litecoin. Users frequently highlight its emphasis on continuity with older markets by allowing vendors to migrate reputations and listings—an increasingly common feature among newer DNMs.

Hacking groups and services

We do not include the trading volume received from DWMs because it is essentially equivalent to the volume sent to DWMs. Emerging trends shaping darknet marketplaces in 2025—insights into cryptocurrency trading and security. Tor2door’s been a standout since 2020—over 20,000 listings and a custom-built site that’s not some cookie-cutter junk. They take BTC and Monero, with multi-signature escrow and global shipping—vendors swear by it, and I’ve snagged rare stuff (think DMT or niche scripts) without a hitch. Drugs lead the pack—weed, pills, some synthetics—but digital goods like hacked logins are gaining, tying into Telegram’s side gig boom. For 2025, they’re teasing AI-powered search—could make digging through listings a breeze, which I’m hyped for since their catalog’s already hefty.

Top Darknet Markets 2025

The number of malicious tools, or “drainers,” designed to steal cryptocurrency assets like tokens and NFTs saw a substantial rise. Unique threads discussing drainers on dark web forums increased from 55 in 2022 to 129 in 2024, with Telegram channels serving as prominent hubs for these activities. Kaspersky report states, Last year, the underground market for cryptors—tools used by cybercriminals to obfuscate malicious code and evade detection—grew significantly. Developers introduced advanced techniques, advertising subscriptions ranging from $100 to $20,000.

Emergence and structure of decentralised trade networks around dark web marketplaces

Overall, Abacus Market distinguishes itself through rigorous security measures, effective moderation policies, and a strong emphasis on protecting user privacy. Despite minor accessibility inconveniences, these strengths have solidified its position among the top dark-web marketplaces in 2025. A Canadian market established in 2021, WTN offers over 9,000 products, including narcotics, fake goods, and digital services. It operates in both French and English and has built a reputation for ease-of-use.

Increase in Data Breaches via Contractors

• However, it has a sneak peek, easy guide steps, and/or a quick list providing quick in-page navigations and easily-found answers if desired.
• The number of stable U2U pairs created each day was, however, steady over time during 2020, even though more U2U pairs were created compared to the same period in 2019, see Figure S9.
• It markets itself as a reliable platform with strong operational security.
• The Silk Road was a famous dark web marketplace where users could buy and sell goods and services anonymously.
• Although dark-web marketplaces utilize technologies like Tor and I2P to enhance anonymity, these methods are not foolproof.
• The investigation uncovered a local criminal organization linked to a large international drug supply operation.

Tor, short for “The Onion Router,” routes internet traffic through a global network of volunteer-operated servers to anonymize a user’s online activity. This technology initially had noble intentions, aiming to protect activists, whistleblowers, and individuals in repressive regimes. However, it soon became a double-edged sword as malicious actors began to exploit its capabilities for illicit purposes. In exploring the top 11 dark-web marketplaces in 2026, we’ve examined their core operations, diverse use-cases, inherent risks, and evolving trends. While these marketplaces continue to serve legitimate purposes, such as enabling secure communication and privacy protection, they also remain hotspots for illicit activities and cybercrime.

Silk Road and early markets

• A public FBI/CISA advisory reports more than 21,000 infostealer-log listings across cybercriminal forums in a single quarter of 2024.
• World Market is another largest dark web shops that deals with various goods and services.
• Moreover, this darknet shop provides detailed statistics about each user profile on the platform, giving users a better idea of the vendors for the buyers and vice versa.
• U.S. Treasury and FinCEN advisories describe how illicit cryptocurrency services help criminals move ransomware and fraud proceeds.
• In 2023, Chainalysis discovered that some popular fraud shops rely on payment processors as a way to reduce their own costs, add efficiency to their operations, and perhaps add a layer of security to transactions.
• Kraken Market also captured the largest share of transfers potentially sent for the purpose of obfuscating funds, as well as buying illegal products.
• The width of the edges is proportional to the number of multihomers acting between the markets.

Use Norton VPN to encrypt the data you send and receive and surf more anonymously. Administrator and prolific vendor Gal Vallerius was arrested in August 2017. These aren’t distant problems—they are immediate, and they affect public safety, financial systems, and global cooperation. According to a 2024 report citing unsealed court documents, USDT was widely darkweb marketplaces available in Mexico at a discount, allowing resellers to profit in countries like Colombia. The arrest of Durov heightened fears that Telegram would start cooperating with authorities, forcing vendors to find new places to operate. Nexus opened in late-2023 after the Fall of Bohemia and quickly absorbed many of that community’s well-rated vendors.

This survey highlights active and recently shuttered markets with actionable metrics and intelligence for threat hunters, CISOs, and red team leaders. If your personal data ends up for sale on the dark web, it can lead to serious consequences like identity theft, financial fraud, or unauthorized access to your online accounts. Some dark web listings claim to offer services like hacking-for-hire or even hitmen. Law enforcement agencies monitor many dangerous markets, and even anonymous browsing isn’t foolproof. Just visiting these sites can attract attention from law enforcement, especially if you interact with known vendors or download suspicious content. Malicious vendors often infect buyers with spyware, ransomware, or infostealer malware hidden in downloadable files.

The surge stems from weak local enforcement, widespread use of streamlined crypto payments, and a digital space valuing privacy. These factors allow vendors to avoid typical oversight while operating covertly online. These marketplaces accounted for over 97% of illicit revenue generated through Bitcoin and TRON transactions.

Anonymity

The dark web market urls and darkmarket links remain essential for navigating this decentralized network, fostering a thriving digital economy. Dark web marketplaces have been a significant outlet for illicit trade, serving millions of users worldwide for over a decade. First, we propose an algorithm that categorizes users either as buyers or sellers, and show that a large fraction of the trading volume is concentrated in a small group of elite market participants.

Espionage and National Security Threats

The starting point for this paper is the identification of U2U networks around DWMs. We analyse 40 DWMs for the time period spanning from June 18, 2011 to January 31, 2021. Our dataset covers all major DWMs that have ever existed, as identified by the European Monitoring Centre, Europol, the World Health Organization, and independent researchers24,25,26.

Some of the biggest markets have disappeared within just a few weeks in the latter half of 2022. Ever since Silk Road went down, several dark web marketplaces have kept coming and several of them shut down again. To stop the marketplaces is not a walk in the park as it takes immense effort from authorities like the FBI and international law enforcement. The darknet markets keep on popping even when the authorities keep getting hard on them. While there are several darknet markets, each features unique characteristics tailored to various user needs. Perhaps, the figures can tell you what your personal information is worth when it lands on the dark web.

DrugHub Market

• Once wallets are linked to real-world identities, marketplaces lose a key layer of protection.
• It is a wallet-based shop, meaning you must first deposit bitcoins into your wallet before purchasing any goods and services.
• To expand their reach, some marketplaces established parallel channels on Telegram.
• These roundups stress that listing volumes and category prominence fluctuate over time.
• A dark web market is a hidden online platform where users can anonymously buy, sell, and trade illegal or sensitive items.
• Still, the dangers are severe — exposure to scams, malware, surveillance, and prosecution are just the beginning.
• However, the website has some security risks, and users experience glitches.

The website utilizes a valid SSL certificate issued by Google Trust Services, expiring in 2026, indicating basic encryption and identity verification. Hosted in Canada and utilizing Cloudflare suggests efforts to improve performance and potentially mitigate DDoS attacks. A significant positive signal is that Google Safe Browsing reports the domain as clean, indicating no detected malware or phishing attempts. This is a strong indicator that Google does not currently see the website as malicious. It uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to obscure transaction details.

Our work unveils sophisticated patterns of trade emerging in the dark web and highlights the importance of investigating user behaviour beyond the immediate buyer-seller network on a single marketplace. Today, darknets are populated by a vast array of users, ranging from privacy-conscious individuals to cybercriminals, hacktivists, and nation-state actors. These hidden networks provide a platform for illegal activities that include the sale of stolen data, hacking tools, weapons, counterfeit currency, and narcotics. Dark markets, often accessed through specialized marketplaces within darknets, are breeding grounds for underground economies, where users can engage in transactions while evading law enforcement and ethical oversight. The goods on sale range from stolen credit card data and forged documents to illegal drugs, weapons, malware as a service, and hacking tools.

We count a total of 11 million transactions around all DWMs, that goes down to 9.9 million when multiple counting is avoided. Similarly, the simple sum of the single trading volumes surrounding all DWMs amounts to $33 billion, while the overall trading volume in all unique U2U pairs is $30 billion. Among the 40 large DWMs under consideration, 17 participate in at least one transaction in either 2020 or 2021, while the remaining 23 closed before 2020. Notably, our dataset includes Silk Road (the first modern DWM)1, Alphabay (once the leading DWM)44, and Hydra (currently the largest DWM in Russia)12. Other general statistics about our dataset can be found in the Section S3.

Dark markets provide a one-stop-shop for cybercriminals, offering a wide range of services such as hacking tools, stolen data, ransomware, and Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks for hire. This increases the accessibility and sophistication of cyber threats, with far-reaching consequences for businesses. To secure against these risks, organizations invest in robust cybersecurity strategies, conduct regular security assessments, and educate employees to recognize and mitigate threats. Activities on dark-web marketplaces are closely monitored by international law enforcement agencies. Purchasing or selling illegal goods—such as controlled substances, counterfeit documents, or stolen data—can result in significant legal penalties, including fines, criminal charges, and imprisonment.

This underlines the economic importance of U2U transactions in the Bitcoin ecosystem relative to DWMs. Essential advice for navigating darknet marketplaces safely and effectively in 2025. However, the success of law enforcement is just one possible explanation for this decline. This theory is supported by the fact the number of active darknet markets themselves are also on the decline. Darknet market vendors have suffered—as legitimate vendors have—through a strained postage and shipping network on account of COVID-19.

Between June 1 and June 27, 2025, average daily deposits to Abacus totaled USD 230,000 across 1,400 transactions, but this plummeted to just USD 13,000 across 100 deposits from June 28 to July 10, 2025. Welcome to this collection of darknet resources, curated exclusively for educational and informational purposes. This repository serves as a knowledge hub for individuals interested in understanding the structure, functionalities, and applications of the darknet. Please note that all material provided here is aimed at promoting awareness, responsible research, and ethical use of information.

This is an outcome of the ecosystem’s resilience, largely supported by the migration of users15. Correspondingly, the multihoming activity is a mechanism that contributes to the ecosystem’s resilience. Because they are already active in more than one market, the migration cost for the multihomers is usually smaller compared to that for non-multihomer users, especially for sellers, that need to rebuilt their reputation23.

A thriving category of illicit goods and services sold on dark web markets is that of scans of personal documents. As with our previous reports, we gather data by scanning Dark Web marketplaces, forums, and websites. This information is then processed to generate an index of average prices for a broad range of specific products. In 2022 and Q dark web markets continued to bloom with a multitude of listings of various illegal goods and services. We do not engage with darknet markets; our mission is exclusively dedicated to providing information for research and educational purposes.

• The ASAP is a moderate design marketplace on the dark web that offers helpful tools like mandatory PGP encryption and two-factor authentication for a safe browsing experience.
• The integration of blockchain-based smart contracts is also becoming widespread, automating secure transactions and reducing the likelihood of fraud.
• As a result, platforms fragment, rebrand, or disappear faster after major enforcement actions.
• The surge stems from weak local enforcement, widespread use of streamlined crypto payments, and a digital space valuing privacy.
• Thus, use the best antivirus software that protects against these online threats.
• Ever since Silk Road went down, several dark web marketplaces have kept coming and several of them shut down again.

U.S. customers predominantly purchase drugs from these groups that are known to have used crypto to source fentanyl precursor chemicals from labs based in China. The cartels then use those chemicals to manufacture fentanyl that is later sold in the U.S. U.S.-based drug vendors on Abacus Market advertising a synthetic opioid called China White, which its customers can purchase using Bitcoin or Monero. On a smaller scale, Mega Darknet Market placed a few ads with QR codes in public places like Moscow subway trains.

Cryptocurrency transactions are analyzed to identify payment patterns and laundering methods. Once wallets are linked to real-world identities, marketplaces lose a key layer of protection. Marketplaces often collapse when servers, hosting providers, or related services are seized. Even partial disruptions can trigger panic, causing users and vendors to abandon the platform. Law enforcement pressure is one of the main reasons dark web marketplaces remain unstable and short-lived. Dark web marketplaces expose users to multiple layers of risk that extend beyond financial loss and affect legal standing, personal safety, and long-term consequences.

Finally, we observe that COVID-19 only had a temporary impact on the evolution of stable U2U pairs, which continued to increase their trading volume throughout 2020. Overall, our study provides a first step towards a better microscopic characterisation of the DWM ecosystem, indicating a direction of investigation that may be of interest to both researchers and law enforcement agencies. The results further support the recent efforts of law enforcement agencies to focus on individual sellers43,44,45, as well as, more recently, also buyers46,47. Since the beginning of DWMs’ activity, there has been a shift in the law enforcement approach from focusing on market admins towards sellers and buyers9,13.