After an extensive study of Dark Web markets, security services firm SurfWatch Labs revealed today that AlphaBay is the most popular Dark Web marketplace.
The market appeared towards the end of 2014, and managed to climb to the top of the rankings, surpassing many of its competitors, which closed voluntarily or with a “little help” from law enforcement authorities.
AlphaBay gained its first wave of customers in March 2015, just a few months after the website opened. At that time, the owners of another Dark Web marketplace (Evolution) disappeared after taking all the Bitcoins from users who had deposited them into their accounts on the site.
In an interview with DeepDotWeb, AlphaBay founder alpha02 said that his website gained over 18,000 new users in the first three days after Evolution disappeared.
The same thing happened at the end of August, when Agora, another famous Dark Web marketplace, decided to close, citing security concerns for its users.
SurfWatch Labs said today that by October 2015, AlphaBay had gained a massive userbase consisting of 200,000 users, making it one of the most popular Dark Web marketplaces.
The security firm reports that between January and May of this year, AlphaBay's total products increased from 12,500 listings to 20,000.
So even after the resurgence of the Silk Road drug market, AlphaBay remains the top marketplace for those looking for illegal goods on the Dark Web. Users can buy anything illegal that can't be found on the visible web: drugs, weapons, hacking tools, or hire anything from hackers to assassins.
SurfWatch Labs analyzed the website and created the chart below of the most popular items sold on AlphaBay over the past 30 days. As you can see, the hottest commodity is stolen user data.
