Despite law enforcement agencies’ rigorous attempts to put a pin in the rise of Darknet Markets, new marketplaces make an appearance every now and then. One such marketplace is the subject of this Grey Market review.
Here’s a list of all the questions we’ll address and answer throughout this Grey Market review:
- How Easy, Hard is the User-Interface on Grey Market?
- What are the Products available on Grey-Market?
- How Secure is Grey Market?
- Who and How can someone Vend on the Marketplace?
- What are the Payment Modes accepted on Grey Market?
- What are Grey Market Pros and Cons?
That should cover most questions you might have about the marketplace.
Disclaimer: Trading on Darknet Markets is illegal. This Article is only written with the purpose of bringing out the types of marketplaces arising in the industry. We do not support/encourage or promote any activities related to Darknet markets.
Any action taken on any Darknet Market, related or not related with this article/website will solely and completely be your own responsibility. This page should only be consumed as an “informative article”.
Grey Market Overview
Grey-Market only came to existence less than 3 months ago, hence it’s not as feature or product-rich as Nightmare, DeepMart or other such slightly older marketplaces.
Here’s an overview of the marketplace which should get you an idea of what are the primary pillars the marketplace is built upon:
- Primary URL: greymtqdzxqec5ox
- Registration: Required.
- Security: 2-FA, Escrow, PIN.
- Vendor Bond: USD $99.00
- Currency: BTC, XMR.
- Products: 738.
- Dread: http://dreadditevelidot.onion/d/GreyMarket/
How Easy/ Hard is the User-Interface on Grey Market?
Even though Grey Market didn’t re-invent the wheel and kept things traditional for the most part, there were a bit of changes it made to its UI as compared to other marketplaces.
For starters, it did away the “product-sidebar” that most marketplaces feature. Rather, it embedded a “Search panel” there which lets users search for products.
It’s not a major change, yet in my personal opinion it’s a good one considering how the categories can still be reached if the user simply selects it from the drop-down menu and applies the filters.
The top-bar however remains the same as with most other marketplaces and acts as the navigational bar.
This is what lets users access different important sections of the platform such as Messages, Affiliate, Support etc.
All the remaining real-estate on the webpage is dedicated to displaying products. So in a nutshell, there’s the search-bar, top-bar and products. No ads, banners, or additional clutter is present.
What are the Products available on Grey-Market?
As mentioned earlier, Grey Market is a new player in the game and hence the number of products isn’t that impressive.
Currently it only has a product-stock of 738 products. Now note that this number is growing exponentially, and it was around 600 just 48 hours ago, which speaks for the consistent growth the marketplace is making.
Products of almost all the types are available and can be chosen from the drop-down menu on the search-panel.
This includes:
- Drugs
- Fraud
- Digital Goods
- And Services.
Each of these is sub-categorized into many smaller categories, for e.g. Drugs has Dissociatives, Stimulants, Opioids, Weight loss, Benzos, Harm reduction etc.
Fraud offers Accounts, Carding, Documents. Services are offered related to Hacking and Money. Although I also found an additional service of “Background report” which probably is a background checker for a person. Although unlike the legal sources, this report may comprise of data obtained illegally (or else it wouldn’t be on a Darknet Market ,would it?).
The exact number of products in each categories isn’t listed. But still, a first-glance does establish the fact that in most cases an everyday DNM (Darknet market) user would generally find what they’re looking for here.
How Secure is Grey Market?
The marketplace being new hasn’t implemented many security features yet. The only major security features available so far are Escrow, PIN and PGP (2-FA). It also is a Wallet-less marketplace (explained later).
Escrow as is probably known to you ensures that neither the buyer nor the vendor can scam the other party.
The Escrow acts as a middle-man, and keeps the funds with itself for a specific point of time by which either the buyer has to release funds or dispute the order.
The dispute (if any) is then settled and whoever wins the dispute gets the money. In most cases where no dispute is involved, the funds get auto-released to the vendor.
It also features Finalize-Early even though it’s not a security feature, it’s related to Escrow. Finalize-Early means no Escrow is involved in that transaction and the funds get instantly released to the vendor.
These are only available for level 7 vendors or vendors who’ve been active for the past 6 months. Should only be used with Vendors you trust and/or have a previous history with.
Then there’s PGP encryption which can be used for secure communications, as well as for 2-FA. 2-FA would ensure that even in cases your password is compromised, the hacker can’t get into your accounts.
Upon login, if 2-FA is enabled the user would have to decrypt a PGP-signed message using the private keys for the Public keys pre-specified in the user account.
And then finally there’s a PIN which is set during registrations. This PIN is required for all major changes to the account. This further ensures that in case both the password and the PGP keys are compromised, there’s not much harm the hacker can cause to the user account.
Wallet-Less Deposits
As mentioned above, it’s wallet-less. Meaning it doesn’t have a “wallet” where users deposit their funds before purchasing something. All payments are made in real-time, just at the time of the order for the specific product being purchased.
Hence there are no excess funds on the platform. This protects both against hackers and exit-scams. The marketplace can’t exit-scam because there are no extra funds it can run away with.
As for hackers, even if they do login to your accounts because there’s no “wallet”, there are no funds and nothing for them to steal!
In a nutshell, despite being new the security measures are more than acceptable.
Who and How can someone Sell on the Marketplace?
Grey Market isn’t a single-vendor marketplace, and hence it does accept individuals who’d like to sell over there.
Vendor-bonds currently are priced at USD $99.00, these probably aren’t refundable. Or, if a vendor has over 500 sales at some other established marketplace, they may get a free vendor account.
There obviously are a couple rules and terms the vendor has to agree to, such as no fake feedback, no selling of banned products and so on.
Apart from the vendor account fee, there’s an additional fee the vendor pays for each sale.
New vendors pay 5% on each sale, and this decreases as vendors gain more experience and trust on the marketplace. The lowest fee possible is 2% for a vendor with 50,000,000 Experience.
Vendor accounts are exclusively for selling, as per the marketplace F.A.Q they shouldn’t be used for buying products.
What are the Payment Modes accepted on Grey Market?
The final section of this Grey Market review will talk about the accepted payment modes.
While most other similar Marketplaces have a Bitcoin-only Policy, Grey Market takes a step further and also accepts Monero (XMR). Monero is equally, if not more anonymous than Bitcoin and for the most part is also cheaper (transaction fee) as compared to BTC.
What are Grey Market Pros and Cons?
Let’s sum up all the primary features (and problems) I personally felt to have existed while scribbling this Grey Market review down?
Pros:
- Wallet-Less Deposits.
- Acceptable No. of Products.
- Good security.
- Multiple Payment Modes.
Cons:
- Multisig Transactions could be added.
Final Words:
So if I have to drop my final verdict on this Grey Market review, I’d probably go with it if I was a Darknet Market trader.
I mean, why not? Speaking strictly from a “availability of features” perspective, it has almost everything that most other marketplaces do, the security features, products, vending rules and so on.
The trust may be an issue for some, but hey it’s wallet-less remember? So the maximum you can lose is the price for one single product.
Do you think I’ve been fair throughout this Grey Market review and have brought out the features transparently without bias? Do let me know in the comments.
