With all the popular marketplaces either shutting down (Dream Market), getting Seized (Hansa Market) or just exit-scamming there is a lack of destinations for Darknet Market buyers and vendors alike. This Grey Market review aims to bring one such potential platform to light.
This, alike all our other Darknet Market reviews will only be a transparent, non-biased and honest review of the marketplace. There will be no assumptions, only what’s available and what’s not.
If by the end you feel the features satisfy what you’re seeking for, go with it else don’t. It completely is your choice to make.
Disclaimer: Review for Educational and research purposes only. Do not involve in any Darknet Market activity.
Grey Market at a Glance
Is this Grey Market review worth your time and energy? This overview would help you with that decision:
- Onion Link: greymtqdzxqec5ox
- Age: 3 Months
- 2-FA: Yes
- PIN: Yes
- Multisig: No
- Products Listing: Nearly 800
- Vending: Allowed
- Payment Methods: Bitcoin/Monero
Does Grey Market Require Registrations?
Yes, alike most other marketplaces Grey Market does require registrations. Although the registrations are fast, free and instant.
Here’s the registration page:
As the above screenshot illustrates, there’s no personal information asked for. Simply a username, a password and a PIN is what’s required.
The accounts do not have an “activation time” either and can be accessed instantly once registration is complete.
Does Grey Market Need Deposits?
Considering how a number of “popular and established” markets have been exit-scamming recently, Grey Market seems to have come up with an anti-scam measure.
It removed the Crypto-wallet altogether which the marketplace could scam users for. So, it doesn’t have a wallet where users deposit funds and make purchases. This also eliminated the “minimum deposit” requirement as there’s no wallet to begin with.
Now users choose a product, go to the checkout page, check the amount and only deposit funds required for that individual purchase. These funds are then directly sent to Escrow.
So in other words, the marketplace doesn’t need deposits and only needs payments for each orders placed.
What can You Buy and Sell on Grey Market?
Nearly all the Darknet markets out there are dominated by Drugs, aren’t they? Well, it’s a product largely categorized on Grey Market as well; even though it may or may not be the most well-stocked product.
Infact each sub-category under the Drugs section, further has its own sub-category. Drugs for e.g. has Opioids, Cannabis, Tobacco, Ecstasy etc. And then Ecstasy has MDMA, MDA, XTC; Cannabis has Weed, Seeds, Hashish and so on.
Grey Market also specializes in Digital Goods which include products like Information, Ebooks, Guides etc. Fraud-related products too are listed which include Accounts, Carding, Documents etc. And finally, Money-related and Hacking services too are available.
As a total the marketplace has exactly 740 products so far.
What can You Sell on Grey Market?
The marketplace obviously allows the selling of all the items listed above. But it’s not completely without its boundaries.
Vendors can’t sell:
- Weapons
- Child Porn
- Fentanyl
Any other product not included in the list above may be added even though it doesn’t exist on the marketplace yet.
What are the Rules for Sellers on Grey Market?
This Grey Market review shouldn’t only be for the buyers, should it? Any user can apply to be a vendor on the marketplace as well.
Although vendor accounts need to be purchased with a USD $99.00 fee. If a vendor has acquired “Trusted vendor” status on other marketplaces, or has 500 Sales to his/her name they may be eligible for a free vendor license.
The marketplace seems to take professionalism seriously, and hence asks all its vendors to charge only a reasonable fee (shipping and handling). Questions from buyers also need to be responded as soon as possible and with precise answers.
While on some marketplaces there may be a gap between the listing-description and the actual product, Grey Market doesn’t allow it here. This again encourages professionalism and a sense of trust for the buyers.
Security too needs to be taken care of, vendors are required to Encrypt all communications between themselves and the buyers whenever possible. Additionally, Vendors must have a PGP key on their profiles which further speaks about the marketplace’s approach towards security.
What are the Security Features on Grey Market?
The primary security features I found to be available on the Marketplace are:
- 2-FA
- PGP Encryption.
- PIN
- And Escrow.
2-FA (2-Factor authentication). But obviously it being a DNM can’t use cellphone numbers for the OTP, and hence uses PGP instead.
Everytime a 2-FA enabled user tries to login, here’s what’s displayed:
As is evident, just having the password isn’t enough. And I’m also asked to decrypt the above encrypted message in order to login, this encrypted message is what acts as the OTP.
Apart from that, PGP is also used on the marketplace for various other reasons, for e.g. BTC and XMR return addresses can only be changed after decrypting another PGP-encrypted message.
Turning off 2-FA too requires PGP verification.
This may be a bit complicated for the first-timers, but PGP is something I guess every Darknet stroller should learn about.
Then it also has Escrow. Escrow is more of a trade-security feature than an account-security measure. It facilitates the safety and fund-safety during a trade. Chances of a vendor being able to scam users are minimized to almost zero over Escrow.
The PIN is a password-reset code. Although it doesn’t change after each usage and remains the same. It’s required in case you forget your account password and need to reset it.
Although it doesn’t feature Multisig Transactions yet, Multisig transactions add a bit more security to Cryptocurrency transactions. Although, we can chuck it up to the marketplace being new and it probably will be added later.
Can you Trust GreyMarket Vendors and Products?
The marketplace and the “vendors” on the marketplace are two separate entities. Hence even though the marketplace has brought in some anti-scam measures, can its vendors be trusted?
There can’t be an absolute answer to that, but the marketplace tries its best to be as transparent and honest as possible about each of its vendors’ statistics.
Every vendor profile displays:
- The joining date of the vendor.
- Total number of Open/Closed and Disputed orders.
- Level of the vendor.
- Trusted status.
Additionally, each product-page too displays the above vendor-statics along with the product information. Information about the total sales of the specific product, Views on the product, Escrow/FE status too are displayed.
These help a buyer vet not just the vendor profile, but each individual product as well.
How good is Grey Market Search Functionality?
Grey Market doesn’t have a “Product category sidebar” as is seen with almost all the marketplaces.
Rather, it hosts a “Search-panel” which is used to find products. This Grey Market review section is dedicated to reviewing the search-panel.
The metric here would be, the number of filters and the precision-capabilities. More filters indicate narrower and more precise results.
Here’s what the search-panel looks like:
As is evident, the filters available currently are:
- Category
- Keyword
- Display Currency.
- Payment Currency.
- Source and Destination countries.
The “Category” drop-down menu lets users select an exact category > sub category > sub-sub category for the product. Pretty pin-pointed.
The Keyword box lets users enter their exact keywords. Then the “display currency” can be chosen as well. This is basically the currency in which the prices of the products are displayed to a user. Users can choose from AUD, GBP, EUR or USD.
The payment-currency can be selected using the tick-boxes. Only products accepting payment in the selected mode are displayed.
Users can also specify if they need/don’t need Escrow or F.E products. And finally the country from where the item is being shipped, as well as the destination country too can be selected.
All in all, the search-functionality is pretty impressive. The only thing it’s missing is a price-range filter which could let users specify their minimum and maximum budgets.
How can You Pay on Grey Market?
Cryptocurrencies (isn’t that obvious?). Cryptocurrencies have been the payment mode on Darknet Markets much before the normal world (non-DNM world) even heard of them.
The difficulties of tracing Crypto transactions are next to impossible if not completely unfathomable. Fortunately, Grey Market accepts multiple Currencies for Payment.
Payments can be made both using Bitcoins, and also Monero.
Wrap Up:
So that’s all I had to pour as far as this Grey Market review goes folks. It’s still an infant yet has shown commendable growth in terms of products, vendors, security features and overall usability.
It’s a marketplace both for the buyers as well as Vendors. We’ve seen much older and reputed marketplaces running away with user-funds, so doesn’t Grey Market deserve a chance?
Let me know if you agree with this Grey Market review, and even if you don’t (along with reasons if you can please?).