A Complete Guide to Royal Market

In this guide we explain everything you need to know to get connected to Royal Market, one of the biggest darknet markets currently in operation.

Royal Market is a darknet market that was founded in October 2020. Since that time, it witnessed tremendous growth, thanks to a combination of employing a strong set of desirable features and simply outlasting the competition. According to stats maintained by the market, Royal has over 1,150 vendors and 154,000 users, making it one of the larger darknet markets that is still running strong. Much of the darknet market community seems rather pleased with Royal as it does not rely upon the traditional account wallet system, using the much more popular per-order payment system instead. This cuts down on the appeal of a potential exit scam as it lessens the total amount of funds controlled by the market at any one time.

Unlike most other markets, Royal adds a 5% charge to each purchase that must be paid by the buyer. Normally this fee is subtracted from the vendor’s payment during the release of funds from escrow. In effect, it is kind of like a final “tax”, which is transparent, but must be kept in mind by the buyer when they are placing an order. The account creation process is simple and efficient, as is the order placement process. Navigation through listings can be a bit unwieldy, though Royal does contain dozens of subcategories and a decent selection of filter options.

For some reason, the Royal Market site does not always load upon the first attempt to connect to it. This problem can almost always be resolved by simply refreshing the browser or pressing Enter in the URL tab. Other than that, we like how simple the market’s account creation and login process is, and the fact that their captchas are pretty simple, as well. It also employs a rather advanced DDOS protection system that does not heavily inconvenience its users like some others. For these reasons – along with the fact that it supports Monero and uses wallet-less escrow payment system – Royal Market deserves praise.

Some of the more interesting features offered by Royal Market include a live feed of market-related activity, including vendor listings, new user registrations, and announcements made by the market itself. It also hosts a selection of tutorials on how to use the market, as well as “Custom Shops” for trusted vendors who want to display their featured wares. In all, Royal seems to be one of the more comprehensive and well-executed darknet markets we’ve seen in a while, and they have done quite well for themselves in their year and a half of operation.

Basic Facts about Royal Market

• Year founded: 2020
• Royal Market link – royalrnpvfbodtt5altnnzano6hquvn2d5qy55oofc2zyqciogcevrad.onion

• Cryptocurrencies accepted: Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR)
• Total Product/Service listings: 26,600+
• Listing Categories: Documents, Drug Recipes, Leaks, Prescription, Steroids, Tutorials, Benzos, Cannabis, Counterfeit, Digital, Dissociatives, Ecstasy, Fraud, Opioids, Psychedelics, Services, Stimulants
• Multi-signature escrow? No
• Finalize Early? Yes
• Cost of vendor bond: $1,000

Before Getting Started

There are some technical concepts of which a darknet market user must possess an intermediate (or higher) level of understanding before attempting to place an order, and they include the following:

• Tor browser. This is what will allow you to connect to the Royal Market URL or any other darknet site.
• Cryptocurrency. You will need to know how to send and receive cryptocurrency, principally Bitcoin or Monero. We recommend using Monero (XMR) whenever possible, as it is much harder to trace transactions on its blockchain.
• OpSec. Short for operations security, this involves engaging in practices online that allow you to maintain your anonymity in the best way possible. A good example of this would be never sending BTC to a Royal Market order payment address straight from an exchange.
• PGP. You will need to know how to generate a PGP key pair as well as encrypt/decrypt PGP messages. This is necessary for all communications on darknet markets like Royal Market and should be done when providing a shipping address for an order.

Disclaimer: This guide is for research purposes only and should not be construed to be 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 Royal Market at your own risk.

Creating an Account

The registration process on Royal Market is exceptionally simple. To get started, first click on the “Register” button toward the upper-right corner of the screen. You will need to enter a username, password (twice), and Withdrawal Pin (between 4-6 digits, also entered twice).

After entering this info and saving it to a secure place, check the “I’m not a robot” box, solve the (easy) captcha presented, and press “Create account”. You will then be presented with what is called a “Password Reset Token”, which looks something like this:

Copy it and save it as well. This acts as an account mnemonic (as they are usually known as on other markets), except you will also need to remember the username of your account to make use of it. Press “Login” after you have copied this string. You will then be returned to the market login screen. This time simply enter your username and password to log into the market.

Setting a PGP Key

To set your PGP public key for Royal Market, first hover over your username toward the upper-right of the main market page, and then select “Profile Settings”. Next, switch the tab from “Settings” set by default to “2FA/PGP”. Then scroll down until you see the Your PGP Key section. Here you will see the text box where you will paste your PGP public key. When entered correctly, it should look something like this:

Next, enter your Withdrawal PIN and press “Add PGP”. You will then be asked to decrypt a message that has been encrypted with your key and paste a 7-digit code in a field under the message. Select the entire message (this can be done by simply clicking on it) and decrypt it using your PGP utility (Kleopatra, for example) Enter only the code portion of the message in the text box. It will look something like this:

Press “Validate PGP” after you have done this. If everything goes according to plan, you will be returned to the PGP tab of the Settings screen.

Setting a Refund Address

Royal Market does not use the traditional account wallet system where you must first credit your account with funds before making a purchase. Instead, it uses a direct pay system where payments are made per order. Instead of making a deposit to your account, it is made to an address that represents payment for a specific order. This payment is released to the vendor after the order has been finalized by the buyer, which means it is harder to lose funds during the event of a market exit scam.

Before making a purchase, you will need to set up a refund address to which your order payment can be refunded if necessary. This can be done for either BTC or XMR purchases, depending on the payment type of your deposit. We recommend using Monero whenever possible due to its privacy features which make transactions on its blockchain much harder to trace.

After configuring your PGP key, you’ll notice a message on the PGP settings screen that reads,

“It seems that you did not add any wallet yet. Make sure you add one, otherwise you can’t sell/buy. The wallet is used to send you the coins in case your purchase gets cancelled, dispute won or referral fees (as a buyer) or when your order gets completed, disputes won or referral fees (as vendor).”

To do this, simply click the red box next to the text that says “Go to Settings”, or if you are already on the Settings page, click the “Withdrawal” tab. Scroll down a bit until you find the text that reads “Setup your automated withdraw wallet”. Below this, you will see boxes for both Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) addresses. Note that while not all vendors accept both methods of payment, most do. We recommend always using XMR and will be setting an address for that coin for the purposes of this guide. To do this, simply paste your XMR address (always use a new address from a personal wallet and never an exchange), enter your Withdrawal PIN, and press “Add address”.

If entered correctly, you will be brought back to the top of the Settings tab and greeted with a message that reads, “You have successfully added your XMR address!” You can now start placing orders on Royal Market.

Browsing Royal Market

Though the layout of Royal Market isn’t the prettiest, it is relatively easy to navigate. The first listings shown on the main market page are featured listings, usually offered by experienced vendors with a number of sales under their belt. Beneath this are “New Products”, listings added recently. They appear to be automatically added and unpaid-for listings. To find a specific category (or subcategory) on Royal, hover over the “Products” menu tab toward the top left of the screen. Here you will find listings divided into the following:

• Documents
• Drug Recipes
• Leaks
• Prescription
• Steroids
• Tutorials
• Benzos (Pills, Powder, Other)
• Cannabis (Buds & Flowers, Concentrates, Edibles, Hash, Prerolls, Seeds, Shake, Other)
• Counterfeit (Driver’s License)
• Digital (Gift Cards, Transfers, E-books, Fraud Software, Game Keys, Guides & Tutorials, Legitimate Software, Fullz, Scans)
• Dissociatives (GHB, Ketamine, MXE, Other)
• Ecstasy (MDA, MDMA, Methylone & BK, Pills, Other)
• Fraud (Checks, Accounts, CVV & Cards, Dumps, Other)
• Opioids (Buprenorphine, Codeine, Dihydrocodeine, Heroin, Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, Morphine, Opium, Oxycodone, Pills, RCs, Other)
• Psychedelics (NBOME, Shrooms, Other, 2C-B, DMA/DOX, DMT, LSA, LSD, Mescaline)
• Services (Carding, Social Engineering, Other)
• Stimulants (Cocaine, Crack Meth, Speed, 2-FA, Adderall & Vynase, Other)

One of the cool things about browsing Royal is the fact that the vendor’s number of total sales is displayed at the top of each listing box. This makes it super easy to tell which listings are being offered by experienced vendors vs. newbie vendors (which is important, because we recommend avoiding newbie vendors at all costs). Clicking on a category (or subcategory) reveals listings arranged by how recently they were added.

For each listing box we can see the vendor name, their number of sales across multiple markets, item picture, price in dollars, country shipped from and to, as well as the coins accepted and whether this vendor is Escrow or FE enabled. To the right of this are some filter options, including search term, vendor name, category, product type, ships from/to, and price range. Listings can also be sorted by price (low to high, high to low) and popularity. Clicking on a listing reveals advanced details.

Here we see that this vendor has a total of 416 sales; most of which came from other markets, as they are still a Level 1 vendor and are labeled “New Vendor”. They have 2 good feedbacks and 1 negative. We can see that this vendor has yet to sell any of this particular product, and only accepts BTC as payment. They are also non-FE enabled, which is why the order placement type reads Normal Escrow. Scrolling down a bit reveals three tabs: Details, Feedback, and Refund Policy. We recommend giving this information a thorough read-through before placing an order with a vendor for the first time.

Placing an Order

After you’ve found a product you’d like to order, press “Add to Cart” to begin the order placement process. Royal Market makes this process very simply by putting everything you need to know to get started, including a link to the vendor’s PGP key. You should absolutely encrypt your shipping information when placing an order. To do this, press the blue button beneath the order info that says “Click here to see Vendor Public PGP Key”. Copy this key and import it into your PGP utility (such as Kleopatra, using the Certificate Import feature). Next, encrypt your shipping information with this newly-added key and paste the contents in the shipping details box.

Make sure you have selected the proper payment method you wish to use (we recommend using XMR whenever possible), the shipping option, and quantity. If you make any changes, you will need to press the “Update” button under the shipping details box before continuing. When everything looks good, scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the final order total and Checkout button.

Notice that Royal Market adds a 5% buyer-side fee to each order, which means the actual amount to be paid will be 5% higher than the listed product price. If you agree to the final amount to be paid, press “Checkout”. You will be given one final chance to review your order. Double-check to make sure the total price, payment method and escrow type are to your satisfaction. If they are, press “Purchase” to continue. You will then be brought to a screen that displays the payment address that corresponds to your order.

Here we can see that the total payment due is 0.45599965 XMR. This exact amount must be sent to the payment address (begins with a “4”) for the order to be processed. Note that payment will not be marked as received until after your transaction has received 10 confirmations on the Monero network (usually between 20-30 minutes). After it has, the Current Balance field will update to reflect that the payment has been received. You may need to refresh the screen after 20-30 minutes to confirm this.

Notice that there are five different order statuses:

• Purchased (includes waiting for the vendor to accept the order)
• Sent (the vendor has mailed the order)
• Delivered (the buyer has accepted the order and marked it as finalized)
• Disputed (the buyer does not want funds to be released from escrow because there is a problem with the order)
• Canceled (the buyer or vendor has canceled the order)

Buyers can cancel an order after placing it (before payment has been sent) by pressing the red “Cancel Purchase” button beneath the Payment Status. After payment has been confirmed by the market, the order information will be passed on to the vendor, who will then begin preparing it for delivery. Note that it is the buyer’s responsibility to mark the order as finalized after receiving it, which can be done from the “Purchases” tab in the menu area. This is considered to be proper market etiquette.

If you have ordered an item from a vendor with FE privileges, you will need to finalize the order immediately after it has been marked as “Sent” by the vendor. Check on the status of your order in the Purchases tab regularly for any updates.

If you receive the order and there is a problem with it – or you never receive it at all – you can open a dispute, also from the Purchases tab. You will need to do this within the window of time before the order auto-finalizes. If you have made a purchase from an FE-enabled vendor, you will not have the opportunity to open a dispute, so make sure you absolutely trust their abilities before placing an order with them.

Royal Market URL –

royalrnpvfbodtt5altnnzano6hquvn2d5qy55oofc2zyqciogcevrad.onion

Conclusion

Royal Market is one of the larger and more comprehensive darknet markets that has managed to last during a period of time when so many others have gone down. It has just about all the principal components of a good darknet market, except for the fact that they do not force PGP encryption of shipping information (they claim to do this on their end if the buyer somehow fails to do it on their own, but this should absolutely be done by the buyer upon placing any darknet market order). The layout of the market can make it a bit confusing to navigate at first, but the fact that they have divided their listings into so many categories makes it rather easy to find the product for which you are searching.

In all, Royal Market has hit upon a winning combination which has served them well, allowing them to experience tremendous growth over the last year and a half. Their DDOS filtering and captcha systems are among the best we’ve seen, and granted you follow basic precautions and the steps outlined in this guide, you should have no problem placing and order through their marketplace.