In this guide we explain everything you need to know to connect to the Cannabia, one of the darknet’s newest marketplaces.
Launched on Nov. 1st, 2022, Cannabia is a darknet market that specializes in the listing and sale of cannabis and cannabis-related products. This includes marijuana flowers (buds), edibles, concentrates, oils, and hash. The market was built and opened by the team behind Bohemia, which is a relatively successful and popular darknet market that was opened in mid-2021. Cannabia features a state-of-the-art design and incorporates several of the most advanced features desired by today’s users of darknet markets, which include options for Direct Pay (per order payments), BTC Multisig, and of course, Monero support.
According to the admins of the market, Cannabia was created to provide “a safe and curated space for those who are only interested in cannabis and products related.” This, along with an elegant categorization and filtering system, makes it quite easy to find the exact product for which you are searching (granted its related to cannabis). Cannabia also offers 24/7 customer support, a simplified purchase process, as well as configurable escrow periods and an advanced merchant panel for vendors. If you already have an account at Bohemia, you can use the same login credentials to access Cannabia.
Basic Facts about Cannabia
- Year founded: 2022
- Cannabia Market link: n3sedyyz5updwilgditgo57lb4nsbonuw3kw5hkpw7o6d35x7wdmnayd.onion
- Cryptocurrencies accepted: Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR)
- Total Product/Service listings: 1,900+
- Listing Categories: Flowers, Hashish, Concentrates, Edibles, Seeds, Miscellaneous
- Multi-signature escrow? Yes
- Finalize Early? Yes
- Cost of vendor bond: $500
Before Getting Started
Before attempting to use Cannabia or any darknet market, there’s a few subjects of which you should have at least an intermediate level of understanding, which include:
- Cryptocurrency transacting. You must have at least some understanding of how crypto transactions work to use Cannabia, which includes being able to send and receive cryptocurrency. We recommend using Monero (XMR) when possible as it is a privacy-oriented coin and superior to Bitcoin (BTC) for darknet market purposes.
- The Tor browser. You must have the most recent version of the Tor browser installed and know how to use it well enough to maximize your own level of privacy while doing so.
- OpSec. Short for “operations security,” OpSec is the art of putting yourself in the shoes of an adversary to identify ways in which they might use your internet activity against you. If you are not sure what this means, take time to familiarize yourself with the idea before continuing.
- PGP. Short for Pretty Good Privacy, PGP is an encryption standard widely employed by darknet markets and their users. You should be familiar with PGP enough to encrypt and decrypt messages. You will also need to know how to sign and verify messages to use Cannabia.
Being able to fully understand what you are doing can mean everything when using darknet markets and can be the difference between having a good experience and a costly one. We recommend waiting until you are comfortable with how the entire deposit and purchase process works before placing your first order. Remember that there is no such thing as being under-prepared when it comes to protecting your own funds, privacy, and freedom.
Disclaimer: This guide is for research purposes only and should not be construed as advice; legal or otherwise. The authors of this guide do not condone activities that are illegal in your jurisdiction or others. Use the contents of this guide and/or Cannabia at your own risk.
Don’t Get Phished
In anticipation of DDOS attacks, Cannabia has implemented a rotational mirror system, which means that the market URL changes quite frequently. It is recommended that you always visit the official site when finding a link to Cannabia. If for some reason you cannot access the rotating mirror page, make sure you get your link to Cannabia from a verifiable source, such as the market’s page on Dread.
Never use a link you found elsewhere on the clearnet — especially from a social media site like Reddit. You will likely end up visiting a phishing site and lose whatever you might deposit there. You also run the risk of having your real Cannabia account compromised. Therefore, you should always stick to the same sources when finding links for any darknet market.
Creating an Account
Registering an account on Cannabia takes a bit more time than most other markets as all new accounts are required to attach & verify a PGP key with their account before entering the market. If you have a Bohemia account, you can use those login credentials to also access Cannabia. If not, follow the steps below the create an account.
1. First, make sure you have found a legitimate mirror; either from the Cannabia mirror site or else the market’s page on Dread. Next, solve the captcha and click the link on the login page that reads “Don’t have an account yet? Register now” at the bottom right of the page. This will bring you to the account registration page, which looks like this:
2. Next, create a username and password, entering the password twice. We recommend creating a unique username and password that is not associated with your real-life identity or any of your other online identities. Note that the password must contain a minimum of 7 alphanumeric characters, 1 uppercase character, 1 lowercase character, and 1 special symbol. Then enter a security PIN which will be used to confirm purchases and withdrawals (minimum of 4 digits). Be sure to save this information in a secure location where you will not forget where it is. Finally, solve the captcha to proceed.
3. In the next screen you will be provided with a secret passphrase, consisting of 12 words. This phrase can be used to recover your account in case you somehow get locked out of it.
Be sure to save these words somewhere safe. If you lose them and are locked out of your account, there will be no way to regain access to it. After you have done this, check the box next to “I have copied these words to a safe place” and press “Continue” to proceed. You will then be asked to confirm your passphrase by re-entering it. Paste the 12-word passphrase in the order provided and press “Confirm Secret Phrase” to continue.
4. Next, you will be asked to attach a PGP public key to your account. We recommend generating an entirely new PGP key pair for this purpose, and strongly recommend not using a PGP key that is associated with another market (if you plan on being a buyer on Cannabia). Be sure to save the PGP key data by backing it up somewhere. After you have done this, export your public key data, copy it into your clipboard, and paste it into the “PGP Public Key” text box. It will look something like this when entered correctly:
We recommend stripping the Comment data off the PGP public key, which contains information that is unnecessary for the purposes of using Cannabia, and includes stuff like the PGP keyholder name, email address, version used, etc. This information is at the top and prefaced by the word “Comment”. After doing this, press “Add PGP Key” to continue.
5. You will now be asked to verify that the PGP key belongs to you by decrypting a message that was encrypted with your key. Copy the entire contents of the text box into your clipboard and decrypt them with your PGP utility to reveal the Authorization Code, which is to be entered in the space below the encrypted message. The Authorization Code will look something like this when properly decrypted:
After you have entered the Authorization Code, press the “Verify PGP Key” button to proceed.
6. Next, you will be asked to sign a message verifying that you are on an authorized Cannabia mirror and not a phishing site. To do this, you will PGP-sign a message that contains the market URL you are currently visiting followed by a unique “token” provided to you by the market, on a subsequent line.
For example, the message we are signing for our example looks like this:
It simply consists of the market mirror followed by the token provided to us. Make sure you are signing the message using the corresponding PGP account you provided the market. After signing the message with your PGP utility (using the OpenPGP Sign tool), paste the signed message into the text box below, and press “Authorize Login”.
7. If all goes according to plan, you will be brought to the “Finalize Registration” screen where you will select a default fiat currency (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD) and enter a specific login phrase that will be shown each time you are attempting to log in to the market.
If you do not see the phrase when logging into the market, it means you are on a phishing site and need to find a different link. If you are satisfied with your Default Currency and Login Phrase, press “Finalize Registration” to complete the registration process. And that’s it. Your account has now been created and you are now logged into the market, where you are free to begin browsing.
Note that Cannabia has 2FA force-enabled, which means you will need to sign a new message with your PGP key each time you log in to the market.
Making a Deposit
While some vendors allow for BTC Multisig and Direct Pay (per order) payments, most vendors at this point still utilize the classic escrow system, which means (for most orders) you must first make a deposit into your account before an order can be placed. Cannabia supports both BTC and XMR as deposit options, and you should establish if your vendor accepts your coin choice for payment before making a deposit, as not all vendors will accept both coins.
We recommend always using XMR when possible. If you do use BTC, it is best to never deposit funds to the market straight from an exchange. Cannabia does have a built-in exchange feature that will allow you to easily convert BTC<->XMR for a 1% fee, although the process is not instant and requires some time for P2P orders to be matched.
To make a deposit into your Cannabia account, first hover over your username in the upper-right corner of the screen and then select the “User CP” option. Next, select the “Wallet” option under User Control Panel. This will bring you to your account balances screen, which looks like this:
If required, you may first have to generate a new address by pressing the corresponding button next to the coin you want to deposit. Note that all addresses are good for one deposit only. After a deposit has been received, a new address will auto-generate. After generating an address, click “Deposit” next to the coin type you will be depositing. For this example, we will be doing an XMR deposit. The deposit address screen looks like this:
Here we can see the XMR deposit address, a QR code that represents the address (for payments from mobile devices), and a list of most recent deposits (currently empty). There is also a Verify Address option which will allow you to verify that the address to which you are making the deposit is actually owned by Cannabia. Clicking on this option will bring up a message that has been encrypted with your PGP key. Unencrypting it reveals a message that contains the address and the URL of the mirror from which you are accessing the market. A successful decryption confirms the authenticity of the address.
Next, copy the XMR deposit address and paste it into your wallet client, or scan the QR code if you are paying from a mobile device. Then enter the amount of funds you wish to send and complete the send transaction. Note that it can take up to 30 minutes for both BTC and XMR deposits to be confirmed. If you do not receive the deposit after 30 minutes, Cannabia recommends opening up a support ticket to make sure you are credited with the deposit account. After the funds appear in your wallet balance, you are ready to start making purchases on Cannabia.
Browsing Cannabia
Cannabia was built with a straight-forward design which makes it extremely easy to navigate. Both the search and category options are located in the left panel. Hovering over a category will bring up its subcategories and clicking on a category or subcategory will bring you to its contents. Categories (and subcategories) featured on Cannabia include:
- Flowers (Indica, Sativa, Hybrid, Other)
- Hashish
- Concentrates (Shatter & Wax, Resin & Rosin, Oils, Vape Pens & Carts, E-Liquids, Other)
- Edibles (Baked, Chocolate, Sweets, Capsules, Other)
- Seeds (Indica, Sativa, Hybrid, Other)
- Miscellaneous (Shake, Pre-rolls, Synthetic, Topicals)
From the listings page, you can see basic information about an item, including an icon-size picture of the product, its name, vendor name, their average feedback rating (out of 5 stars), vendor’s total number of sales, ships from/to information, and quantity of the product sold. Also displayed is pricing for different quantities when applicable. Clicking on an item name brings up advanced information about the listing.
Here we see advanced information about the listing, such as the total number of units sold, what payment options are supported by the vendor, price range, units in stock, a vendor-provided description of the product, and other notes included by the vendor. In the right panel is information on the vendor and clicking on the vendor name will bring up the vendor’s page on Cannabia where you will find a breakdown of their feedback as well as other products they currently have listed on the market. Beneath this is a link to the vendor’s profile on Recon (if they have one there). Beneath that are weight options, shipping types and currency for payment options used when adding the item to your cart.
One of the cool things about Cannabia is that they have integrated Leafly, a marijuana strain directory, into their product pages, meaning buyers can research the effects and qualities of strains being offered for sale on an external site before making a purchase. Unfortunately, this is only available for strains that are currently covered in Leafly and in products for which the vendor has enabled this option.
Placing an Order
After you’ve found a product you wish to purchase, select the quantity and shipping option you wish to use, along with the currency to be used for payment. There are three main types of payment options: standard escrow, BTC Multisig, and Direct Pay. For the time being, most vendors on Cannabia only offer standard escrow, and very few vendors have worked up enough activity on the market to be granted Finalize Early (FE) privileges.
Press “Add to Cart” after you have selected all the options for quantity and delivery. It is possible to purchase multiple items from the same vendor with this feature. Click on the cart icon next to your username in the upper-right corner of the screen to begin the checkout process.
Here you can see the pertinent order details for your review before confirmation. If the quantity, shipping, currency, and coin amount to be paid are satisfactory, press “Proceed to Shipping Notes” to continue. On this screen is the text box in which you will provide your PGP-encrypted shipping information (always encrypt the shipping information as attempting to send it in plain text is considered an OpSec violation in today’s darknet market environment). Cannabia has made the process simpler by providing the vendor’s PGP key in a link under the text box.
Copy the vendor’s PGP key from the provided link and import it into your PGP utility using the Certificate Import feature. Then encrypt your shipping info and paste it in the Shipping Notes text box. It will look something like this when properly entered:
Note that you must check the box immediately above the green checkout button to confirm that you are aware when the payment will auto-finalize. In this instance, the time is 14 days. This means your payment will be released to the vendor after 14 days, regardless of whether your order is completed or not. If the total to be paid and auto-finalize time is acceptable, press “Checkout with Monero” to proceed. If you have enough coins in your account balance to cover the payment, the order will be placed, and the vendor will be notified to begin prepping your order for shipment.
There are a few ways to keep track of the status of your order. The easiest way is to click on the notification icon (shaped like a bell) in the top menu bar. After the vendor has accepted as well as shipped your order, a new notification will appear in this section. You can also check on the status of your orders by hovering over the Navigation option in the menu bar and selecting “Orders”. Orders are divided into five different categories: Processing (not yet shipped), Dispatched (shipped), Completed, Disputed, and Cancelled. We recommend only having one order open at a time.
Cannabia Market URL: n3sedyyz5updwilgditgo57lb4nsbonuw3kw5hkpw7o6d35x7wdmnayd.onion
Conclusion
The relatively recent closures of the Cannazon and CannaHome marketplaces left a hole for a marijuana-focused darknet market, and the Bohemia team is gunning to fill that demand with the launch of Cannabia. Thus far, they have assembled what appears to be one of the more sophisticated, well-designed, and feature-rich markets currently in existence, having learned from their experiences with operating Bohemia over the last year and a half. At the same time, the market sports a sleek, scaled-back design that makes the browsing experience especially pleasant, providing buyers with a wealth of information about their listed products.
Some of the key features offered by Cannabia include support for BTC Multisig, Direct Pay, XMR payments, an easy-to-use coin swapping service, links to Recon profiles for vendors, and links to Leafly pages for marijuana strains. With all the modern features one would expect from today’s darknet markets, it would appear Bohemia has created a new market that is built to last, although we always recommend doing your due diligence before making any deposits or purchases, and only sending enough funds to the market to cover one order at a time. To learn more about Cannabia, we recommend checking out their page on the Dread forum (requires Tor browser).