MarketStor — frequently asked questions

MarketStor is a directory of verified Tor marketplace URLs, refreshed against operator-signed Dread announcements. Each entry has been continuously reachable for at least 90 days. We do not track exit scams, defunct markets, or operators without a verified mirror announcement workflow.

Operators rotate hidden-service URLs in response to denial-of-service pressure rather than on a fixed schedule. Expect a rotation roughly every few weeks per marketplace, sometimes sooner during heavy DDoS waves. The MarketStor directory is refreshed every time a new signed announcement appears.

Nexus, Anubis, Osiris, Crown, Mars, Awazon and WeTheNorth (WTN). All seven are English-language (WTN is also French); five accept BTC + XMR, two add LTC, one adds ETH. Five operators run three or more concurrent onions; two run two.

Tor marketplaces operate as v3 hidden services — no DNS, no certificate authority, the 56-character onion string is itself the operator’s public key. Clearnet marketplaces operate on conventional domains and TLS. Vendor escrow and dispute workflows are conceptually similar but Tor markets are not subject to ICANN or registrar takedowns.

Every URL on this directory comes from the operator’s most recent detached-verified Dread announcement, with the signature verified against the operator’s pinned public key. URLs surfaced anywhere else — Telegram, Reddit, email — are not authoritative regardless of how convincing the channel looks.

Some directories advertise clearnet "mirrors" of Tor markets. Those are not legitimate. No marketplace on this directory operates a clearnet front-end; anything you see on Google under the marketplace’s name is a directory entry or a phishing clone. Use Tor Browser and the verified onion URLs only.

Vendor data changes on a daily basis and a static directory cannot keep up. The marketplace itself publishes per-vendor deal count, dispute ratio and finalize-early eligibility on each vendor profile — that is the data source intended for the purpose, and we point readers at it rather than reproducing it.

Dread is a hidden-service discussion board. Each marketplace runs an operator account that pins verified announcements in the marketplace’s subforum ("/d/{market}"). Operators post mirror rotations, policy updates and incident notifications there. The verified signature is what makes the post authoritative.