Just few days after White House Market’s admin revealed that the dark web platform will be closing for retirement, negative sentiments from a section of Dread users cropped up while other darknet sites tried to plug into the opportunity to urge the platform’s refugees to jump on their ships.
One user created a thread titled “It appears WHM has shut down for good”, which gathered a lot of negative thoughts about what exactly may have happened with the world’s biggest darknet marketplace.
User /u/walter499 who identified himself as a new member of the White House Market’s team of moderators raised the alarm on the fact that the market’s admin had disappeared from the internet. According to the user, Mr White (the admin) had approached him and another person with an offer to become the market’s moderator for the time being.
The situation would take a quick turn for him as he realized that the market did not stay up long enough for 100 percent of all orders to get cleared of escrow and customers to get the goods they ordered from vendors – this created issues with both customers and vendors.
As such, /u/walter499 admitted that he will not be able to help anyone recover their coins from escrow, or give a clear indication about if White House Market will make a return (See screenshot).
As a final nail to White House Market’s coffin, Dread’s co-admin confirmed that all the market’s servers had gone offline and that the platform’s admin had deleted their profile. In addition, the Dread admin revealed that all external contacts with the darknet marketplace were offline.
He said, “I’ll make it official. WHM is retired. Certainly didn’t think it would only be over a week but it seems that is the case. A graceful exit like a new born bird leaving its nest. Quickly to the ground; never to get up again.”
Another user, /u/XanInc, also confirmed that the White House Market admin had deleted his account (See below)
White House Market Out, ToRReZ Market In
Against these backgrounds, all sights are trained on ToRReZ market that has shown consistent growth from its founding. It bears all the advantages that will allow it to replace White House Market as the Top Darknet Market of 2021.
Unlike other dark web sites that have minimal consideration for online user safety, this platform has shown a keen commitment to ensure that buyers and vendors thrive in a safe darknet environment. This is specifically reflected on the market creator’s focus on eliminating the possibility that users will sustain grave harm in case the platform shuts down – this is currently being achieved by the ToRReZ Market multisignature payments feature.
In addition, the market describes itself as a “community driven market” in light of its emphasis into investing in a robust support system for users. This aspect is well captured in the users’ sentiments below.
The market admins have been doing their best to ensure that disputes are solved conclusively and timely – the goal is to take a minimum of 24hours to respond to user queries.
Another factor to consider is that ToRReZ differs from other platforms in that the majority of dark web sites are generally based on the same software. The problem with this approach is the expected security shortfalls that expose individual sites to significant vulnerabilities.
ToRReZ Market, on the other hand, uses a different concept that’s pegged on the fact that its creators built the platform from scratch in ensuring that they design a market that boasts supreme usability for all vendors and buyers.
Point to note, ToRReZ market has banned a number of activities and the sale of some items on its site. They do not permit the sale and distribution of child sex abuse material, and including any resources related to the topic.
In addition, the platform prohibits users from dealing in items related to selling human beings or their parts. The same prohibition extends to fentanyl and other substances classified to be poisonous to users. The sale of firearms, explosives and other terrorist paraphernalia is also not supported on the market.
The other thing to remember is that ToRReZ market has banned users from conducting fund transfers between money related accounts such as PayPal and Western Union. This also includes all forms of credit cards.
ToRReZ Attributes to Look Out For
A recent announcement by ToRReZ admin revealed that the market has effected an update that will improve user experience (See screenshot below).
In highlight:
- Featured Items will now be available through auctions ONLY. The platform has created the Auction System so that all sellers will have fair chances to get a featured item. The market admin insists that users take time to read and understand the Terms of Service for the site’s Auction System.
- ToRReZ has made minor changes to its profile page and added a tab that displays feedback stats weighted by order value.
- There’s additional filtering options added on vendor’s orders list.
- Customers are now able to block vendors. It means that they will not see listings from vendors they choose to block.
- Number of possible extension days have been extended up to 45 days total.
A Well-Endowed Product Portfolio
As of October 22, 2021, ToRReZ Market had 317,892 customers, 2263 vendors and more than 50,000 product listings.
The categories of products currently being sold on ToRReZ include:
- Tutorials and e-books that encompass subcategories including Money, Carding, Hacking, Drugs and Social Engineering.
- Software & Malware with the following subcategories: Crackers, Security Software, Legit, Carded, Botnets, Malware, Trojans and Exploits.
- Carded Items that are subcategorized into Clothes and Electronics (Phones and laptops)
- Fraud that has the following subcategories: Dumps & Tracks, Accounts (PayPal, Online Money Accounts, Emails, Voice, Crypto, Porn, Movies, Databases, Bank & Accounts), CVV & Credit Cards (BINs, Credit Cards, Carding Guides & Physical Cards), Personal Information (Scans, templates, Fake IDs & Fullz), Services (Social Engineering, Social Media, Hosting & VPS, Domains, VPN, RDP, Socks, Carding, Hacking & Cracking)
- Drugs and Chemicals With these subcategories: Cannabis & Hash (Buds & Flowers, Hash, Vaping, Edibles, Seeds, Synthetic, Shake, Prerolls, Topical, E-Juice, and Concentrates), Stimulants (Cocaine, Crack, Vyvanse, Adderal, Speed, Meth, TMA and 4-FA), Opiates (Hydrocodone, Morphine, Opium, Buprenorphine, Codeine, heroin, RC, Oxycodone and Hydromorphone), Benzos (Pills, Powder, and RC), Paraphernalia (Stash and Storage, Scales, Smoking Accessories, Sniff Tools, Bags and packaging), Anaesthetics, Precursors, Psychedelics (LSD, DMT, Mescaline, Mushrooms, 2C-B, 5-MeO-DMT, DOB, DOC, and DOM), Ecstasy (MDMA and Pills), Dissociatives (Ketamine, GBL, GHB and MXE), Prescriptions Drugs, Steroids, Tobacco, Weight loss and Accessories.
- Counterfeit (Jewelry, Money, Clothers, Electronics, Watches and Fake IDs.
A Superior Payment System
Unlike White House Market that only accepted the Monero cryptocurrency, ToRReZ Market supports four digital coins namely: Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Zcash.
The platform’s Direct Payment System is designed to minimize the risk of losing funds for both buyers and vendors. Instead of the traditional wallet approach that’s common across many dark web marketplaces (involves users sending funds to a site before buying anything), ToRReZ went against the grain.
When a user creates an order, the site generates a unique payment address for either of the four cryptocurrencies integrated into the market. The user will have to transfer funds to the generated address after which the transfer of funds from the address to a vendor’s payout address will happen once an order is completed. The process can go the opposite direction in context of refunds (See below).
Here’s how to make payments using the Direct Payment System:
First, you will be required to select either of the four cryptocurrencies supported by the market. You will then receive a payment address in the platform’s payment message, all signed with a PGP key. At this stage, it is important that you import your public keys in case you had not done it already.
It is important that you verify all payment messages received from the market to avoid possible phishing attacks.
ToRReZ allows you to conduct a maximum of four transactions per purchase. This technically means that a user can make payments for one purchase in no more than four transactions. The platform strongly advises against making more than one transaction for each purchase for security reasons.
Take note that in case you fail to pay the requisite amount in four transactions, the specific order will be cancelled by the market and funds will be refunded back to the buyer automatically.
In addition, in case you choose Multisignature Escrow, you will be able to view your redeem script that can be copied and stored in a safe place – you may need it for one reason or the other. ToRReZ has done buyers the huge favour of displaying the redeem script on a user’s order page the whole time.
Once you pay for the order, the Payment Details section of the listing will refresh automatically and let you proceed to the next stage.
While simple Escrow may be considered to be a safer payment option compared to the conventional wallet system, it turns out that it is not perfect. The problem with Escrow brings itself out whenever a dark web market is closed under common circumstances, usually in an exit scam or a law enforcement seizure.
In such cases, all the users’ funds held in Escrow stay locked. The Multisignature Escrow approach employed by the ToRReZ marketplace happens to be a highly efficient and convenient payment system. The platform requires 2 Multisignatures for every transaction taking place on the platform – they include 3 parties for every process.
Put simply, Buyer, Vendor, and The Market have equal controlling rights over the funds, although only two of them have to agree to spend the coins. This means that in case ToRReZ is knocked off the dark web today, the vendors and buyers can still complete their purchase process. In case a vendor exit scams, The Market will refund the buyer after approving the process by signing the transaction.
ToRReZ Market says, “If you find any other market with this kind of Escrow system claiming that they have an entirely safe solution – it is a lie. Only Multisignature Transactions 2-of-3 makes the transaction safe for Buyers and Vendors.”
Potent User Security
User security over the Tor network and the ToRReZ market is considered top priority by the admin. The platform claims that it has invested enormous time and resources into creating an environment that buyers and vendors can enjoy.
First, the market highly recommends that all its buyers and vendors choose Monero cryptocurrency over Bitcoin. While Bitcoin happens to be the largest and most valuable crypto at the moment, it does not guarantee user anonymity.
Recent advances in law enforcement technology has equipped agencies such as the Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) with the tools needed to lift the veil of anonymous dark web transactions.
Years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched a taskforce that would be focused on tracking down dark web money laundering that is being enabled by bitcoin and other digital assets.
Another look at the high profile Silk Road case involved the analysis of blockchain evidence by law enforcement agents. The information was effectively used to convict Shaun Bridges, a Secret Service operative who was alleged to have scammed Silk Road staffers during an investigation into the dark web marketplace.
In the case, the court learnt about how thousands of bitcoins were moved from Silk Road into an account belonging to the law enforcement agent. Investigators went further to map out the movement of the Cryptocurrency by following the money to reveal wire transfers that were traced to a company belonging to the defendant.
Importantly, law enforcement agencies have been tracking dark web users by leveraging on Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations that compel crypto exchanges to gather precise information about the identity of their clients.
Monero, on the other hand, offers better anonymity as it uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide a users’ identities. All transactions involving Monero hide the digital addresses of the senders and receivers, while Bitcoin transactional details get recorded on the blockchain.
As such, law enforcement agencies and other third party actors can simply access the clues concerning the real identities behind the crypto transactions.
In addition to supporting Multisignature transactions, ToRReZ strips all exif data from photos in an effort to hide image information that may be used to track down users. This also extends to ensuring a strict control of how much transactional information is maintained on the marketplace.
The site also claims that it does not provide any detailed time of operations and actions taken by ToRReZ users – the time stamps are always eliminated from the site to avoid possible profiling of users and data leaks.
In addition, the marketplace emphasizes that all users must use PGP encryption. Vendors, specifically are subjected to a mandatory requirement to attach it to their individual accounts before they can be able to sell on ToRReZ. While buyers are not compelled to use it, the messaging on the site goes a long way to try and convince the buyers to leverage on this security feature.
Reliable Dispute Resolution System
The dispute resolution system on ToRReZ Market is simple. Here’s how it works:
A buyer will press the Dispute button to cancel all automation. From that point, the market will install a communication system for both buyer and vendor sides – this will mean that ToRReZ admin will be aware of the issue and gain access to the communication taking place between the buyer and vendor.
In cases where both parties fail to reach an agreement, the market’s admin will step in to make a decision of which party will win the argument. Here are some of the actions that can be taken to that effect:
- Conclusion of the dispute with no blame being placed on either party. This will also mean that funds will be sent back to the buyer as no one will have lost the dispute.
- The dispute can be closed with blame placed on either the vendor or buyer. In this case, funds will be sent back to the buyer but the market’s admin will penalize either the buyer or the vendor by increasing the tally on the number of lost disputes. This will definitely have a negative effect on the online image of the user in question.
- Finalization of the order where funds will be released to the vendor and none of the parties will suffer punishment from the market admin.
- An order will be finalized after a dispute is lost – funds will be released to the vendor but the market admin will prescribe a penalty to either the buyer of vendor by increasing the tally on the number of lost disputes.
- Sometimes, a split refund may be done by the admin. It denotes a scenario where funds get split between buyer and vendor according to the respective item’s refund policy. This will also mean that none of the parties will bear the burden of a penalty.
Otherwise, the buyer can also choose to close and finalize the Dispute without assistance from the site admin.
ToRReZ market advises vendors to ensure that they had already taken their time to read and understand the Terms of Service for each vendor before any engagement. Otherwise, the admin will be keen to ensure that a Vendor sticks to what they prescribed under those terms.
Another point to note is that ToRReZ does not admit liability for product quality. In cases where a buyer is not satisfied with the quality of a product they purchased on the marketplace, the most they can do is to leave “neutral” or “negative” feedback on the vendor’s profile while giving precise descriptions.
Affiliate Program
ToRReZ market users are also encouraged to join the platform’s Affiliate Program that serves as an opportunity for them to create multiple streams of income.
If you recommend the market to other users, you’ll be able to earn a commission on each purchase or sale made – the amount also depends on whether the recommender has tagged along a vendor or buyer.
Joining the Affiliate Program on ToRReZ is a simple process. You’ll just need to use the program link found on your sidebar and accept the market’s rules in light of the program. Once you do this, you’ll be given a unique Invitation Code that can be sent out to other people. Once a new user creates an account on ToRReZ and uses the unique code, they’ll become your personal referral.
The marketplace offers 10 percent of site fees if you refer a buyer. You will get commission from every finalized order this buyer makes. It gives 15% of market’s fees if you refer a vendor. You will get commission from every finalized deal this vendor makes.
Point to note, all commissions are added to a user’s internal account. They can withdraw once they reach the minimum payment amount. ToRReZ pays commission for all the available coins on the marketplace.
Importantly, withdrawals of commissions are not automated for security reasons. The market will pay your commission from safe, cold wallets and it will take from 24 hours up to 48 hours following your request for payment.
The market will subtract the miner’s fee from your payout as all payouts are sent in a single transaction.
Coupon Discounts for Buyer Motivation
Apart from building a good reputation (See vendor ranks below) to enable you attract customers to your ads, you may want to take advantage of the current coupon discounts feature.
As a vendor on ToRReZ, you can create the coupon discounts for rewarding your buyers. In “Vendor Tools-Settings”, you’ll be able to assign them accordingly. Take note that you will need the following information:
- Name – make sure than you give your coupon a title. It is only for your own reference.
- Allow Staff – decide if you want your staff (if any assigned) to be able to generate codes on this coupon.
- Discount Ratio – here you can define percentage discount. Put 0 to disable it.
- Discount Amount In – Define in what currency and how much, in the fixed amount, is the discount for. Put 0 to disable it.
- Minimum Price In – Set the minimum purchase price (and the currency) for the discount to apply. Put 0 to disable it.
- Maximum Price In – Set the maximum purchase price (and the currency) for the discount to apply. Put 0 to apply unlimited maximum price.
- Minimum Quantity – define the minimum purchase quantity for the discount to apply. Put 0 to disable it.
- Maximum Quantity – define the minimum purchase quantity for the discount to apply. Put 0 to apply unlimited amount.
- Finalize Early (FE) – applicable only for vendors with FE privileges enabled. If checked, coupon will only work on FE enabled orders.
Once you create the coupon discount, you will then need to generate codes that can be sent out to customers. To do this, click on the “☰” symbol next to the Coupon Discount you want to create codes for. You will then “Create New button”.
- Start Date – choose the start time, when you want your code to work.
- End Date – choose until what time you want your code to work.
- Usages Limit – define how many times you want this code to be used. Put 0 for unlimited usage.
After you set those values, the market let you create special filtering for the codes. You will be able to make the code:
- Working only for selected usernames.
- Working only in selected categories.
- Working only for selected items.
You can mix those filters (usernames and categories or usernames and items) or use them separately. You can also skip setting filtering and make codes available for all buyers, for all categories and all items you have in your store.
Once you are done with filters, you’ll need to specify:
- Amount of Codes – how many codes you want to generate, 100 is the maximum limit.
- Prefix Code Name – define your custom Prefix for the code. If you name it “ToRReZ” and set the amount of codes for ten, we will give you ten codes: ToRReZ1, ToRReZ2 … ToRReZ10. Every prefix requires at least 6 characters and it is limited to 30 characters. If you leave this field empty, the market will generate random 6 character codes for you.
After creating codes, you will be able to see it’s usage (if any), what filters does it have or you can simply delete each code.
How to Access ToRReZ Market URL
Be sure to check out our complete ToRReZ Market guide.
Otherwise, here’s ToRReZ Market onion link:
http://333f7ul6ad4nuq4v4i6q7aqlw4e6qjn6ra4w3bz6jzn3po2eodjkl4id.onion
504 Gateway Time-out —all the times…..