Markets: Agora

Agora was launched on December 3 of 2013 and shut down on September 7, 2015. It launched just days after the Sheep Marketplace exit-scam and closure of Black Market Reloaded, the two largest dark-net markets during the time, which quickly lead to a large influx of new users and eventually became the largest dark-net market and remained so for much of its’ existence. It aimed to improve upon the failures of the Silk Road, especially in areas pertaining to security. It offered Multi-Signature escrow along with traditional escrow, and only accepted Bitcoin for transactions.

Initially, firearms, ammunition and other weapons were allowed to be sold on the marketplace, which lead up to Agora having far more weapon-related arrests reported by the media than any other dark-net market. The continuous weapon-related arrests reported by the media made collecting commission from a rather small category not worth it for its’ staff and ultimately led to their decision to remove the “Weapons” category and prohibit the sale of all weapons on the marketplace on July 15, 2015.

On January 11 of 2015, the art collective !Mediengruppe Bitnik finished their “Darknet: From memes to Onionland”, an exhibit for the items purchased by their “Random Darknet Shopper”, a botnet that was given $100 worth of Bitcoin every week to buy miscellaneous goods. 10 Yellow Twitter 120MG MDMA tablets, spy gear, the Lord of The Rings ebook collection, Chesterfield cigarettes, and a Sprite drug stash can were all purchased by the bot and delivered to the group. The exhibit is displayed in a building next to a police station in Zurich, Switzerland.

In late August of 2015, the markets’ staff released a PGP signed message which announced the ceasing of the market’s operations citing security concerns. Users were able to withdraw their funds until the market shut down later on September 7, which made Agora one of only a few dark-net markets to have ever existed that closed down without either stealing their users funds or being seized by law enforcement.