Markets: Versus

Versus Market was founded during the summer of 2019 and shut down in May, 2022, after an announcement was made by the sites’ administrator, “William Gibson”, which stated that a vulnerability allowing read-only access to a six month old copy of the market’s database was discovered, along with a possible leakage of an IP address associated with a single server they used for less than thirty days, and after contemplating between rebuilding the market or retiring “gracefully”, they chose the later after much consideration. While drugs were the most commonly sold item on the market, fraud-related items, digital goods, and a variety of services were also sold as well. The site even had a “Legal Items” category, where clothing and a wide array of products that are not generally subjected to legal restrictions could be sold. Versus prohibited finalizing early (FE), and used Bitcoin multisignature escrow as the only payment mechanism. The site experienced increased popularity and user influx during 2020 after several other darknet markets shut down. During the “Earn hunDREADS!!” contest hosted by Dread’s staff during December of 2020, William Gibson became a sponsor by providing $750 worth of XMR as a prize for the winner of the “harm reduction” category.