A market that’s nearly 2 years old should be one of the top markets in the industry. Is it? That’s what we examine in this Dark Matter review.
Yes, we will discuss its product-stock, security features, payment policies and a lot more. The review is completely unbiased and transparent, meaning, you’ll decide if it’s worth your time by the end of this review.
For now, let’s just say that if you need a new dark web market that’s wallet-less and focuses on your privacy, Dark Matter may be a potential option.
Intrigued? Let’s get started.
How to stay invisible and safe on the dark web?
The dark web is a dark place, no pun intended. Follow the steps below to ensure your identity and actions stay invisible and can’t be tracked back to you:
- Make sure your Tor browser is set to “safest” setting. (Go to Tor browser > type “about:preferences#privacy” > scroll down to the “security” section > set it to “safest”.)
- Download NordVPN. This is the most important step. NordVPN has an independently verified “no log policy” and “onion over VPN” servers which make it perfect for dark web browsing.
Legal disclaimer
This Dark Matter market review is purely for educational and research purposes. We do not support/encourage or promote buying/selling of illegal items.
This review simply describes what we see on the website. We have not verified the authenticity/legality or legitimacy of the market or its vendors.
The products listed on the market may be pranks, scams or illegal. This article and the administrators of this website will not be responsible for any of your actions, both legal or illegal. It’s the reader’s duty to ensure all their payments, purchases, trades and all other actions on the market stay legal.
Dark Matter Market – Primary Features
Before we dive deeper into this Dark Matter review, here’s everything that makes and breaks the market:
- URL: http://darkmat3kdxestusl437urshpsravq7oqb7t3m36u2l62vnmmldzdmid.onion/
- Total products: Nearly 4,000
- Security features: PIN/ Escrow/ Multisig/ 2-FA/ Mnemonic code/ personal phrase.
- Cryptocurrency: XMR
- Age: 1.5 years
- Vending fee: 2 XMR (refundable)
- Wallet-less: Yes
If those features seem acceptable to you, this piece is just for you.
Does Dark Matter require registration?
Yes & no.
Unlike most other darknet markets, Dark Matter doesn’t need registration simply to “browse” the marketplace. You can check the market and its products even without registering.
This is pretty impressive. This means a user only registers on Dark Matter after they know their product is available and up for sale.
This also means the market doesn’t care about numbers and doesn’t just want to get its “registered member” count up.
Even when you do register, this is the form that needs to be filled:
That’s pretty basic, isn’t it? Everything being asked is anonymous and can’t really be linked to a user personally.
Dark Matter User-Interface
So, do you need any special skills or previous experience to start using Dark Matter? Not exactly. This is what the UI at Dark Matter look like.
I like the fact that the market didn’t “copy-paste” the UI that most other markets are using. Sure, that makes things simpler but I’ve been bored seeing the exact same thing for about 5 years now.
The basic UI still remains the same. There’s a top-bar which serves as a navigational panel. You can see options such as orders, accounts, chats etc. at the top.
The left-sidebar gives you all your products. The center-screen is where everything else happens when you click on a link/option.
Being honest, it’s not very “modern” looking but hey it gets the job done and isn’t really hard to understand.
What products does Dark Matter sell?
If you’ve been on any other dark web market before, you already know what it sells. Yes, there’s nothing “unique” or “special” on the product catalogue here. The total product-stock is just shy of 4,000. Not impressive but an acceptable number.
Most of its product-stock is dominated by various types of drugs. These include Cannabis, Ecstasy, Opioids, Benzos, Steroids guides & tutorials etc.
Apart from drugs, it of course also sells e-books, fraud software, documents, accounts etc. in its “digital products” category.
It has a “fraud” category which basically is for all kinds of financial listings. These include cards, CVVs, bank accounts etc.
A security & hosting category lets you buy VPN, Socks, DMCA-free hosting etc.
It also offers services, of course, they wouldn’t be what a clearnet site offers. These services are generally about carding, social engineering and causing all sorts of mischief.
Finally, another category (this can actually be merged with “digital products”) includes botnets, exploits, malware etc.
All in all, I’d say there isn’t a lot of criticism as far as product-stock goes from my end, would you agree?
Is Dark Matter wallet-less?
This is one of my favorite aspects about Dark Matter. The market is a wallet-less market. This means there are no “wallets” for your account. You do not need to deposit and keep funds in the wallet.
Rather, for each address, an address is generated. Users can pay this address from any third-party/external wallet.
The benefit to this is the market can not “exit-scam” with your funds. Exit-scam is when a dark web market shuts down and runs off with all the user-funds stored on the market wallet. Because there are no wallets, no exit scam.
Although, it does have its downsides. With a wallet system, you deposit funds once and keep using them till they run out.
Without the wallet-system, you’re paying from an external wallet each time. That means, the risks of a payment being traced to your external wallet increase that much. Also, recurring network fees for each transaction are to be considered.
At the end of the day, I prefer wallet-less systems but hey you may have a different opinion.
Which Cryptocurrencies does Dark Matter accept?
This again is a bitter-sweet moment on this Dark Matter review.
The market only accepts Monero. Now, privacy-lovers will find it sweet cause it’s obviously more private than Bitcoin.
However, Bitcoin has become like the staple Cryptocurrency and the lack of it hurts a bit, doesn’t it? More importantly, more people hold BTC than XMR. Hence, for each purchase, a user will have to first convert their other crypto to XMR before they can use it here.
Who can sell on Dark Matter?
Dark Matter is simply a mediator, a third-party which connects buyers to sellers and vice-versa. Hence, anyone who fulfills the vendor terms can sell on the market.
These terms are pretty straightforward:
- A 2 XMR vendor-bond. This actually is one of the cheapest vendor-bonds in the market currently, especially from a market as old as Dark Matter.
- The vendor-bond is refundable once the account is terminated. That again is rare.
Now, from a buyer’s perspective, there are two sides. While the existence of the vendor-bond does create an obstacle for scammers, it’s very desirable. However, considering that it’s refundable and most markets actually charge 3-5x higher even for non-refundable bonds, I’d say Dark Matter is being a bit too generous.
On the brighter side for existing and reputed vendors, Dark Matter actually offers free vendor-accounts. These are only offered to sellers who have 90% positive feedback, and at least 20 sales on other markets.
All in all, I’ll say the low & refundable vendor-bond is a sweet feature for vendors but not so much for sellers.
What security features does Dark Matter offer?
Dark Matter doesn’t compromise with security. It offers everything you can expect from a dark web market to protect your identity and accounts.
For starters, 2-FA. You can choose to receive a secondary authentication each time you log in. This ensures to hack into your account, the hacker must hack your password plus your 2-FA which is nearly impossible.
Then, you set a security PIN during sign up. To change your password or add withdrawal addresses, you’ll need this PIN.
You also get to set a “personal phrase”. Now, unlike other markets, this phrase isn’t displayed on your dashboard. This somewhat negates its use as the phrase is only displayed when you decrypt your 2-FA message.
There’s even a withdrawal address protection and that’s rare. You get to add an address where you’ll receive refunds in case an order isn’t fulfilled or for any other issue. Now, even to change this address, multiple layers of security (your password + PIN) will be required.
Finally, it uses two usernames. A username you use to login, and another that’s your “display username”. This ensures the login username stays hidden adding another layer of protection to your account.
What type of escrow does Dark Matter provide?
The final happy feature I get on Dark Matter is its multisig escrow. Yes, unlike the normal escrow (which is available as well) multisig escrow is more secure.
Multi + sig means multiple signatures are required to authenticate a transaction. Generally, 2+ parties are involved in a multisig escrow, in this case it’s the market + the buyer + the seller. So, the market can not just run off with your funds unless at least one more signature (your or the vendor’s) is present.
How good/bad are the Dark Matter search filters?
Alike every market, Dark Matter too has a decent number of search filters. These are required as you cannot manually shift through over 4000 products without wasting valuable time.
Here’s what Dark Matter offers:
- Shipping source/destination
- Escrow type: Normal/Multisig
- Finalize-Early
- Physical/digital products
The one major filter Dark Matter (and most other markets) missed is a “price” filter. I can not set a minimum/maximum budget and hence I may end up seeing results that are just too expensive for me.
Dark Matter review – Final verdict
So, is Dark Matter the best dark web market out there? Nope. Not at the moment. It certainly has potential and is a great market at that, it’s just not the “best”.
The product-stock will satisfy most of your needs though. The security-features make sure almost no one hacks into your accounts. Most of all, it being wallet-less is just a massive win. Of course I’d love to see Bitcoin get added but XMR offers much better privacy anyway.
There’s multi-sig and the decent vendor-bond (not too cheap not too expensive) to look for as well.
So, I’ll sign off this Dark Matter review simply by saying that it’s a great market that will probably grow over time.
