In 2011, Silk Road was founded as the first formal darknet marketplace and, without a doubt, changed the darknet forever. Nearly 13 years later, we find ourselves often wondering if the DNM environment has dramatically improved since the Silk Road or have they actually gotten worse?

DNM's can generally be categorized through generational castes. Each grouping of markets exists within its own cluster of cohorts. That entire generation typically sees ebbs and flows within that period based on exit scams, busts, retirements, security flaws, etc. Users move within marketplaces within a generation based on the aforementioned factors. Occasionally some marketplaces have enough longevity to stretch into the next "generation" but typically the history of the DNM's can be organized in these loose cohort groups.

Over the course of 13 years, it would be reasonable to expect that substantial improvements and changes would exist across the DNM ecosystem. Simply look at the changes in legal ecommerce over the same time period to see extremely radical shifts and evolution in nearly all aspects of the industry. Unfortunately, it seems like DNM's have not seen the same level of evolution as a whole.

The systems in place for an average market from 10 years ago, 5 years ago and 6 months ago are relatively the same. All popular markets are based on a traditional escrow system with nearly identical ordering, dispute and deposit/withdrawal systems in place. When a market falls - through an exit scam, a bust or an ill timed retirement - users lose their money that remains in the system. This hazard has become so commonplace that it is just an expected pitfall of using darknet markets. The vast majority of markets also use "deposit wallets." This means that when buyers want to place an order, they need to fund an on-site wallet with the market, and then they can use those funds to purchase whatever items they need. This purchasing system is relatively unusual in traditional, legal ecommerce platforms but dominates the DNM's. In general, this also leads to an increased liability of loss of funds if a market ceases to operate - vendors must withdraw their money manually from these deposit wallets and buyers often have excess funds leftover in these wallets as well.

A few marketplaces over the years have made efforts to solve these problems and mitigate risks. 2/3 Multi Sig is a good solution for a payment system rather than traditional escrow. It allows users and vendors alike to be able to access their funds if a market ceases to exist (and prevents a market from stealing said funds in an exit scam). Unfortunately, 2/3 MS is considerably more complex than traditional escrow and aside from a few markets that have offered this payment system over the years, the vast majority of users prefer the simplicity of traditional escrow.

"Walletless" markets are another solution to the deposit wallet problem. Instead of depositing funds to centralized on-site wallets to then fund orders, users can simply pay each order as an invoice so they do not need to leave excess amounts of funds on the site. Vendors can get paid upon the completion of every single order to an external payout wallet, rather than needing to manually withdraw funds at certain intervals. An exit scam can still be very damaging, but this does lead to some financial risk mitigation if a market disappears.

So, 13 years later, why are we still talking about the same problems with the same solutions while the rest of the world's industries advance at a breakneck speed? Perhaps in part because of the illegality and niche nature of DNM's, advancements can get stifled. If something works reasonably well and is simple to use, and it exists within a closed community, people are more likely to not change.

There are actually more good quality, respectable DNM's on average today, than ever before, but they essentially all function the same - and they all function nearly the same as a decade ago. Perhaps it is time for the DNM community to make efforts to advance. It won't be as easy as what we already know, but taking a few extra steps and learning something new could be the start of another darknet revolution.