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a free, independent reference on the Tor network, onion services and the history of darknet marketplaces.

12 articles · English · last revision 12 October 2026

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Featured article

Silk Road (marketplace)

Silk Road was a darknet marketplace launched in February 2011 by the American physicist Ross Ulbricht. It was the first large modern market of its kind, combining Tor onion routing with Bitcoin escrow, and established the template that later markets followed. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation seized the site on 2 October 2013 after a two-year investigation and arrested Ulbricht in a public library in San Francisco. He was later sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, commuted to time served in January 2025. Read more →

In this encyclopedia

The Tor network — the anonymity overlay
Onion services v3 — the 56-character addresses
Darknet marketplace — overview and history
Escrow and multisig — 2-of-3 Bitcoin scripts
Monero and privacy coins — CryptoNote family
PGP and warrant canaries — operator signatures
Phishing and clones — common frauds

From history

Feb 2011 — Silk Road opens on Tor
Oct 2013 — Silk Road seized by the FBI
Dec 2014 — AlphaBay opens
Nov 2015 — Hydra Market opens
Jul 2017 — Operation Bayonet seizes AlphaBay and Hansa
Apr 2022 — BKA seizes Hydra Market

Did you know…

… that a v3 onion address encodes a 256-bit Ed25519 public key followed by a two-byte checksum?
… that the Dutch police covertly operated Hansa marketplace for about four weeks in 2017?
… that Monero hides sender, recipient and amount of every transaction by default?
… that the first widely cited warrant canary was published by hosting provider rsync.net in 2004?

By the numbers

15main articles

9markets covered

5+operations detailed

2 MTor daily users

7 000Tor relays

56chars in v3 onion

Timeline at a glance

2002Tor released
2011Silk Road opens
2013Silk Road seized
2015Hydra opens
2017Op. Bayonet
2021Onion v2 retired
2022Hydra seized
2026Fragmented era

Technical primers

How Tor works Three relays — guard, middle, exit — and why no single one sees both ends of a circuit. Onion addresses 56 base32 characters, Ed25519 public key, SHA3-256 checksum, blinded directory lookup. 2-of-3 multisig Why multisig prevents operator exit scams and how it is used in practice. Monero in short Ring signatures (CLSAG), stealth addresses and RingCT in a single page. PGP & canaries How operators prove their announcements and why canaries are usually silent. Phishing clones Vanity v3 addresses, fake mirror lists and how to verify the real one.

Shops covered on SiteWiki

BlackOps MarketActive

Torzon MarketActive

DrugHubActive

WeTheNorthActive

CannaExpressActive

Catharsis MarketActive

Omega MarketActive

Nexus MarketClosed

DarkMatterClosed

Recent edits on SiteWiki

BlackOps Market — expanded article2026-10-12
WeTheNorth Market — media coverage section2026-10-12
Monero and privacy coins — CLSAG update2026-10-12
Nexus Market — marked as retired2026-10-12
Phishing and clones — new section2026-10-12

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From the Tor Project Blog

Source: blog.torproject.org · fetched client-side

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Source: eff.org · fetched client-side

About this site

SiteWiki is written in the encyclopedic style of Wikipedia and compiled from publicly available reporting, court documents and academic research. It does not publish links to active marketplaces, current .onion addresses, mirror lists or “where to buy” ratings. See About SiteWiki and the privacy policy.