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Concept
AlphaBay
Summary
AlphaBay was a darknet market operating at different times between September 2014 and February 2023. Both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation Bayonet, it was relaunched in August 2021 by the self-described co-founder and security administrator DeSnake. The alleged original founder, Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen born on 19 October 1991, was found dead in his cell in Thailand several days after his arrest, with police suspecting suicide.
AlphaBay reportedly launched in September 2014, pre-launched in November 2014 and officially launched on December 22, 2014. It saw a steady growth, with 14,000 new users in the first 90 days of operation. The darknet informer website Gwern.net placed AlphaBay Market in the top tier of markets regarding the 6-month survival probability and it had proven to be successful. In October 2015, it was recognized as the largest online darknet market according to Dan Palumbo, research director at Digital Citizens Alliance.
Non-standard services included customizable digital contracts around building reputations.
In May 2015, the site announced an integrated digital contracts and escrow system. The contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the future, according to the terms of the contract.
By October 2015, AlphaBay had over 200,000 users.
At the time of its demise in July 2017, AlphaBay had over 400,000 users.
AlphaBay is noteworthy in the world of darknet markets for accepting another cryptocurrency in addition to bitcoin; support for Monero, supposedly more anonymous, was implemented at the end of August 2016.
In April 2016, AlphaBay's API was compromised, leading to 13,000 messages being stolen. In January 2017, the API was once again compromised, allowing over 200,000 private messages from the last 30 days and a list of usernames to be leaked. The attack was from a single hacker who was paid by AlphaBay for the disclosure.
Official source
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