AlphaBay Market , a prominent dark web marketplace that facilitates the sale of drugs and other illegal items , went down last nighttime andusers are panicking , afraid the moderators have shut down the site for good and run away off with the clams .
But it does n’t seem like users need to vex — at least not yet .
This would n’t be the first metre administrator of an online black grocery store displume off such an exit cozenage — the black entanglement marketEvolutionvanished in 2015 , with moderators make off with customer ’ bitcoins . But it ’s not yet clear that AlphaBay ’s moderators are following the same path .
Most of the concern stems from the co-occurrent timing of aBitcoin transactionworth about $ 3.8 million dollar bill . However , the transaction is n’t definitively tied to AlphaBay , and a dark vane expert told Gizmodo that the amount is rather small if AlphaBay ’s creator are indeed pull off their client .
The $ 3.8 million in bitcoin transfer “ decidedly add to the hunch a bit , ” Tyler Carbone , the chief product officer of the dreary entanglement monitoring firm Terbium Labs told Gizmodo . “ But honestly that seems like a amazingly diminished amount to take , if this truly is an issue scam . ” When Silk Road was shut down in 2013 , the feds seized bitcoins from the site and its founder , Ross Ulbricht , appreciate at the time to be worth about$33.6 million . ( The US Marshals Service latersold the bitcoinsin a series of auction sale . )
AlphaBay , which launched in 2014 , has been down since around midnight ET . According to the siteDark Net Stats , AlphaBay is normally pretty reliable , with a 97 % uptime rate .
“ Alphabay ( like the other dark net markets ) does go up and down from clip to time , and so , so far , it ’s our take that it ’s a bite untimely to call [ this an ] exit scam , ” Carbone said . “ It ’s perfectly something to watch , to be indisputable , but as it ’s only been down since last night we do n’t mean that ’s enough grounds yet to be convinced . ”
Update 7/6/17 at 11:00 a.m. ET : It looks like users ’ fears were unwarranted . An AlphaBay moderatorposted on Redditthat the site ’s developers and administrator “ are working to restore AlphaBay as shortly as possible . ” In the meantime , the moderator warned substance abuser to beware of phishing cozenage .
A Terbium science laboratory analyst told Gizmodo that they are quite skeptical of an release cozenage , in part because of AlphaBay ’s size and its team ’s competency . “ If they ’re move to go out , they ’d do a secure job of it , and that ’s not what this attend like to me as of yet , ” the analyst enunciate .
chastening : A former translation of this story misstate Tyler Carbone ’s championship ; he is Terbium Labs ’ master mathematical product officer , not its primary executive .
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