AlphaBay market vanishes once again. Likely another exit-scam.

The current AlphaBay doesn’t have much to do with the original marketplace. An ex-admin from the original market gathered forces to try and recreate the legendary platform. For this, the current alphabay gathered a lot of attention and once again grew to a legendary status. Despite the trust in the ex-alphabay admin, it seems like history is repeating as the platform has disappeared once again. This time the cause is likely an exit scam.

The new AlphaBay.

Alphabay has an infamous name, being one of the first dark-net marketplaces in history. Since the original markets seizure by lay enforcement many scammers have tried profiting from the markets name. Many similar looking markets appeared calling themselves the alphabay, alphabay 2, and more. Most were a scam and vanished really quickly.

Despite all the previous scam attempts, the current alphabay managed to attract a lot of attention. The Reason? An ex-admin from the original marketplace claims to be the founder. This was proven to be trues as he was verified using his original PGP key. His idea worked and the market quickly started to grow rapidly, once again becoming one of the largest dark-net markets of its time.

Signs of trouble.

Since the very beginning, alphabay market started to get a lot of complaints. Users withdrawals were not functioning in many cases, and vendors had balances frozen. Other users received less funds than deposited. Some vendors even claimed to have gotten banned with no reasoning. Despite all the early signs, the market still kept growing. It is likely that initially a small selection of users were targeted. All of the above are claims made by users and vendors on forums like Dread and Reddit.

A forum post claimed that a specific administrator on the market started abusing his powers. He was reportedly banning random smaller vendors to take hold of their funds. All of these complaints were being made on dread right before it went offline. At the time multiple larger vendors expressed their concern on the whole situation. Unfortunately dread went offline soon after, making it harder for users to expose the market.

AlphaBay Disappears.

In mid February, AlphaBay market went completely offline. The reasoning was unknown. Speculation quickly started to spread as users suspected the market exit scammed or even got seized. Since then no comments have been made by the markets team. The admin from the original alphabay market also vanished. There is still no hard evidence that the market has exit-scammed, but based on stories posted by users its the most likely scenario. Still, there is a possibility that the market got taken down by a law enforcement operation that is yet to be uncovered.

Conclusion

Looking past all the previous “alphabay” scam attempts, this market has done really well for what it was. It was well built, had a trustworthy foundation, and a lot of attention. The market really had a lot of potential so it is sad to see it go. Some suggest that the whole motive behind the market was to get a lot of money and disappear. New markets are already quickly filling in the gap left by AlphaBay. Platforms like ASAP market, Bohemia and Tor2Dor are all experiencing an influx of new users.