Scammer
If you’ve been searching for a Darknet market which is extremely anonymous, offers plenty of payment methods and is transparent; this BitBazaar review may serve up exactly that.
Throughout this review, we’d look at the market’s features, potential, products etc. But in addition to that, I also aim to make this into a basic “how to” guide, and will cover the exact steps needed to buy products off BitBazaar.
The steps, or this review is purely and solely for educational purposes; for demonstrating how people purchase products off the Dark web. Using it to actually do so is illegal, and will be your sole responsibility.
BitBazaar Overview
BitBazaar is arguably the newest darknet market out there. It came out of its beta just 24 hours earlier, and is now in its publicly released form.
This is why every time I login, I get to see a massive change in its products and features. Anyway, here’s an outline of what’s available over there:
- Onion URL: j5c6uwvqxvgw6cqk77z2j6yjikumzlleto3y6yqhg73enxewktmenbqd
- Security: PGP, 2FA, PIN, Escrow
- Payment Modes: BTC, LTC, DASH, XMR, ETH, BTCH.
- Registration: Available; not mandatory.
- Stealth Orders: Yes
- Vendor Account: Free
Anonymity
Nutshell- No registrations required / Anonymous optional Signup / Stealth Orders.
When it comes to anonymity, BitBazaar takes things to another level. It’s one of those extremely rare marketplaces which let users purchase goods without registrations!
No registrations mean no accounts and this by far is the highest degree of anonymity that any Darknet market can offer its users.
The registration form if and when used too is extremely “non privacy-intruding” and only asks for random information such as Username, Password, PIN etc. None of which can be used to link back to a user in their real-life.
The marketplace also supports stealth-orders, we’ve explained it and shown the process of placing one such order in details (with screenshots) in later sections.
Variety of Products
Nutshell: Drugs / Physical Goods / Software / Digital Goods.
Arguably the most important aspect of a DNM is the products it offers, isn’t it? Here’s what the products-sidebar on BitBazaar looks like:
The above screenshot is only about 30% of the full list. That’s because all other products are Drug-related, and have been sub-divided into categories making the list extremely long.
That does mean that the marketplace is extremely well-stocked when it comes to Drugs. It offers Cannabis, Stimulants, Opioids, Psychedelics, Benzos etc.
However, it also sells physical and counterfeit items. But that’s not all, it seems pretty big on “financial goods/services” too and lets users buy Cards, accounts, Bank data, etc.
Or if you’re a more of a tech-person and would rather buy software and malware, they’ve got that covered as well.
Security
Nutshell: 2-FA / PIN / Escrow / PGP-encrypted messages.
On a Darknet market, there are two types of security. The first being “account security” features, these deal with the security of the user “accounts”. Protection from hackers, recovery of lost accounts etc.
The second type of security that I seek is that of messages, data, trades etc. So that in case the marketplace is ever seized by the cops the messages between vendors/buyers can’t be deciphered. Or in the case of trades, the features which ensure a scam-free trade are an example of this second type of security.
For “account security” the marketplace starts off by offering 2-Factor authentication. Just like 2-FA on Bank accounts or social media accounts, DNMs too have their way of adding an extra layer of security in addition to passwords.
But it’s not done via phone-number OTP (obviously)! Rather, BitBazaar uses PGP. A message is shown, which can only be decrypted with the users’ private PGP key. Even when your password is compromised, hacker’s can’t get into accounts unless they have the PGP key as well.
Then the marketplace also has a PIN feature. This PIN even though can’t protect your accounts from being hacked, can let you recover the accounts if and when hacked or just lost.
The PIN also regulates all finance-related activities on the accounts. For e.g. even when the password and the PGP key is hacked, the hacker can’t deposit and/or withdraw funds from the accounts without having access to the PIN.
Moving on to the second type of security features, the marketplace provides for an Escrow. Hence funds aren’t directly sent to the vendors when a purchase is made, rather they’re kept in an Escrow unless the buyer releases the funds after receiving the products.
The Escrow also makes sure that the vendor isn’t scammed by the buyer and is rightfully paid once the trade is successful.
It also lets buyers encrypt messages using a vendor’s public keys before sending in the shipping information. Although it’s not automated (yet) and needs to be done manually.
There’s another anti-scammer measure; TRANSPARENCY! The marketplace shows all the details about a vendor on their profiles. So you can check their total sales for a product, ratings, vendor level, reviews etc. before making a purchase.
Bottomline, it’s pretty secure when all the security precautions are taken seriously.
Payment Methods and Policies
Nutshell: BTC/ETH/LTC/BTCH/XMR. Min Withdrawal: 0.01BTC.
The marketplace lets users pay in a variety of ways. While most marketplaces support only Bitcoin as the payment method, BitBazaar comes out being a lot more liberal.
The full list of accepted payment modes include:
- Bitcoin
- Litecoin
- Ethereum
- Monero
- DASH
- Bitcoin Cash.
Note that while withdrawing, there is a 0.01BTC minimum withdrawal limit and amounts smaller than this can’t be withdrawn.
Free Integrated Vendor/Buyer Accounts
Nutshell: Free Vendor Account.
When it comes to doing things “differently”, BitBazaar can’t stop surprising me. Unlike almost all the marketplaces out there, it provides users with one single account which serves both as a buyer and a vendor account.
No vendor-fee or bond required. Upon Login, I navigated to my “Panel” page and it offered me the following screen:
As is evident, it’s letting me add new listings under the “Supply” panel. Then the financial sheet too displays incomes from “Auctions and Products” which led me to believe that it indeed has the vending privileges.
Although note that it may change in the near future and vendor accounts may be charged.
How to Place a Stealth Order?
For this BitBazaar review section, I’d be demo-placing an order as an “anonymous” user. Meaning a user who has not registered and would not register at all considering how that is the most anonymous way to purchase products off a DNM. This is what’s called as a stealth-order.
When you first land on BitBazaar, here’s what the screen would look like:
This is where you choose or search for your product. Either use the search-panel, or the products-sidebar to find the exact product you need.
Audit the vendor details, such as the currencies he/she accepts, whether they accept Escrow, their score/ratings and the price.
Once you do find a product you’re interested in, click on the “Buy” button.
On the next-page select the amount of product you wish to purchase. The marketplace offers multiple batches of products for different prices.
The next page is the shipping-info page. Specify the quantity, and choose a shipping option.
Then you’d be asked to enter the shipping address. It’s recommended you use the vendor’s provided Public PGP key to encrypt your shipping information. Although note it’s optional. Enter your shipping information in the provided box.
The next page would display the Bitcoin address where you ought to send the payment.
Simply make the payment to the provided address within 12 hours of order generation, and done!
As the user isn’t registered, order-status and other details of the order can be checked using the “Invoice Key” and “Invoice Password” provided on the payment page.
BitBazaar Auctions
This being the last section of this BitBazaar review, let’s cover its exclusive “auction” feature.
It basically is like a real-life auction, but is just digital and for darkweb products. Instead of selling products for a fixed price, vendors put their products up on auction.
Buyers can bid on these auctions and purchase the products if they win the auction.
Wrapping Up:
This is me signing off this BitBazaar review folks. So we talked about the market’s anonymity, security, products, payments, vendor accounts etc. We also included that step-by-step guide on purchasing products off BitBazaar completely anonymously.
Two of my personal favorite features for the marketplace are its stealth-orders, and auctions.
What’s yours? Do let us know and also drop your two cents on this BitBazaar review in the comments.