Silk Road may be a thing of the past, but a recent report released by The Digital Citizens Alliance – a non-profit organization focused on Internet safety issues – has revealed that the online drugs marketplace is alive and well and – to quote the report – “darker than ever”.
The report, put together by Cyrus Farivar, and Ars Technica, focuses on a site called Evolution Marketplace, which has reportedly expanded in the wake of Silk Road’s seizing to become the leading online black market for illegal drugs (some suggest that the site had already overtaken Silk Road by the time the latter was taken down).
At evolution, it’s possible to buy a large range of illegal items, some of which are more dangerous than those available on Silk Road. DCA research director Dan Palumbo had this to say:
They sell weapons, stolen credit cards, and more nefarious items that were forbidden on both versions of Silk Road. Silk Road sold a lot of dangerous things, but operators drew the line at their version of “victimless crimes,” i.e. no child pornography, weapons, or identity theft. Now, four of the top five DarkNet Marketplaces sell weapons while three of the top five sell stolen financial data. This is a darker DarkNet. It speaks to the challenge facing law enforcement as they knock one set of bad actors offline, another comes along with bigger and bolder intentions.
How long will it be before Evolution suffers the same fate of Silk Road – and is any backlash from sites like this likely to impact bitcoin’s value going forward? What do you think?
Prohibition of peaceful behavior pushes customers towards those skilled at avoiding the law. This tends to funnel those banned peaceful activities in with not so peaceful ones. Just as liquor stores closed down in favor of mob dens with prohibition, so too does shutting down drug markets only serve to drive drug sale into the willing hands of the truly vile. The state has committed a great evil in shutting down silk road; the trend toward online sales and competition via reputation and service was solving the problem of drug related crime. Absent was murderous turf wars, replaced by low prices and good service. The desire for drugs isn’t removed when the state removes a business that sells drugs. It simply takes away the best current solution and leaves worse solutions to fill the void.
Absolutely agree!!!
couldn’t have been said better
The most darkest place will be NXT free market.
all its doing is gonna push drug buyers an all those kinds of people to the streets and thats when crime rates go up in my opinion..I don’t think these places will ever go down..put one down 3 go up…if its not one its another according to articles..I think you should just them do what they want and focus on who is supplying bulk of the drugs(mexico,asia) than the people selling the drugs. but off the head of the snake the rest will die
“How long will it be before Evolution suffers the same fate of Silk Road”
It will be quite a while, because Evolution is an FBI-run operation, in the same vein as CardersMarket. Wait and see.