Markets: Cartel

Cartel Market was launched during early 2020 and went offline on December 28 of 2021, during the same time as Monopoly Market. The marketplace offered a vast-array of different products and services including, but not limited to, drugs, hacked and stolen data, electronics, guides, hosting, and even had a self-defense section. Cartel provided Multi-signature escrow along with traditional escrow and allowed for transactions to be made in both Bitcoin and Monero.

A day before the markets’ disappearance, its’ administrator, “Ryuu”, made a post on the Dread forum stating that the market was under a DDoS attack, and just hours later Cartel Market and Monopoly both displayed the same error to users who attempted to visit the markets.

Since Cartel Market and Monopoly both went offline at the same time, it has been believed by many users that both markets were operated by the same people. However, both markets had many differences as Monopoly was a drug-only market that strictly forbade anything else from being sold on it including digital goods and buyers did not have accounts, whereas Cartel Market allowed many different types of contraband to be sold on it including certain weapons and required users to create accounts. Cartel Market also had many technical problems over the course of its’ lifetime, whereas Monopoly had very few, if any.

Monopoly’s administrator, “Monopolyofficial”, made a statement on the Dread forum after their market went down, unlike Cartel Market’s staff who have been completely silent ever since their market went offline.