[Announcement] The Free Market is now accepting vendor registrations

This post signifies the launch of The Free Market.

What makes us different is our perspective on security, our approach to mitigating risk, the market functionality and the aesthetics of the interface.

Our team has over a period of months (prior to Operation Onymous), been looking for solutions regarding every confirmed, reported, bullshit, or theoretical attack that could possibly deanonymize a market. If there is was no solution or we weren't satisfied with end result we started from scratch until there was a viable option. After this process was completed, only then did we begin coding the site and building the infrastructure.

Instead of being ignorant and thinking we're impregnable, and not open to the fact that there may be a flaw with Tor, we have made sure that in the event that our servers ever be discovered, mirrored or compromised, everything of any interest to law enforcement will be encrypted, with no loss of funds for buyers or vendors.

Buyers do NOT need accounts on a DNM, all a buyer account achieves is a clear trail of information and history, in addition to this holding coins designated to an account, providing an opportunity for their coins to be stolen or seized. On The Free Market to make a purchase, simply navigate to the desired listing, complete the order form and then fund the escrow directly. The buyer will be provided with a Reference Number, that, along with the pin the buyer set while making their order gives them access to view and make any necessary order management actions, such as contacting the vendor, requesting auto finalization extensions, opening disputes and leaving feedback. PGP is used extensively throughout the service, it is enforced by default, although we strongly recommended against it, vendors can disable the forcing of PGP on buyers.

With a goal of providing a safe platform for both buyers and vendors, The Free Market has a bond system that enables the vendor to request limited early finalization only when they have sufficient available funds in their bond. When a request is made a percentage of their bond is held as insurance against the funds that have been released by the buyer. With time and satisfied customers, the vendors maximum request limit will be increased and the percentage held by us as insurance will decrease.

Vendors receive payment directly within the hour of an order being released from escrow, funds are sent to one of the vendors five predefined payment addresses. This ensures vendors do not accumulate any funds being held by the market, outside of their bond and centralized escrow transactions that are still in progress. Vendors can withdraw from their available bond funds at any time.

The Free Market is now in the process of signing up Vendors. The checkout will officially open on Friday, January 16th at 11:59PM UTC.

If you are a vendor interested in signing up the, the market domain is: http://tfmarket6iaddx45.onion Current application fees are set at $50.00 per account. Existing vendors with extensive positive history on other markets can register and submit a support ticket to have this fee waived.

EDIT -- We will continue answering questions for the next two hours, from then on any inquiries should be sent to our support system.

EDIT -- Thank you for your questions, direct any further questions towards our support system. We are aiming to develop a great reputation among this resilient community.


Comments


[23 Points] InfinitelyOutThere:

Check back in one week to be put on the sidebar marketplace list. best of luck to you.


[14 Points] II-NataYmleg:

Will there be support for displaying prices in other currencies than USD? The notorious absence of that tiny little feature drove me away from major markets which were quite decent otherwise.


[7 Points] thenine9:

everything of any interest to law enforcement will be encrypted

have heard this before. you can't encrypt data that needs to be read by a web server, and recent seizures have shows that LE make live memory captures rendering disk or app encryption useless

how about a technical description of what you are doing and how it is different? otherwise you're just like every other market that promises security vaguely in marketing text.

edit: to add, are there bug bounties?


[6 Points] sobulbous:

Create a way for vendors to hedge BTC. Take advantage of the current crisis.


[6 Points] None:

The Free Market

Current application fees are set at $50.00 per account.

Yet another DNM that can't live up to its name.


[5 Points] freemarket_oracle:

We will continue answering questions for the next two hours, from then on any inquiries should be sent to our support system.


[4 Points] Jay-__:

I like the custom 404-error-page. But it really looks like WordPress or such..

Edit: not that there's anything wrong with it, I actually really like sites with minimal but clear design.

And I never saw that kind of concept before. Sounds weird at first, and I am still reading that huge FAQ-section :P


[6 Points] Servent1:

I see many issues that are small that every marketplace does, like leave out 4-aco and 2cb and assorted drugs. there needs to be a more user friendly market than agora.


[4 Points] goodluckbrah:

I assume there is a way for buyers to submit their PGP public key to the seller in the transaction?

Also: Doesn't having buyer accounts protect the vendor from buyer scamming to some degree? If SWIM was so inclined, what's to stop them from making a number of orders and leaving bogus feedback? How are sellers supposed to screen buyers?

Although annoying for the customers, Sellers who deal in larger orders or larger amounts of money would be put at a disadvantage. Sure, they could store the public keys of previous clients but that would mean that they are storing information from customers.

But I do agree with the hedging of BTC, although I don't see how this could be profitable for the market at the moment. BTC has done nothing but plumment recently.

Regardless: good luck and good hunting! We're all rooting for you.


[3 Points] throwaway:

...solutions regarding every confirmed, reported, bullshit, or theoretical attack that could possibly deanonymize a market.

On #tor, this guy was asking yesterday whether it makes sense to build tor with Google's Native Client to reduce the risk from flaws in the implementation of the tor client. Is that a good idea?


[0 Points] pinkpanther227:

I call bullshit. If your server is physically compromised encryption will not protect the data since the decryption key can be dumped from ram. Further if the server is simply shutdown, you loose everything unless you have a backup and you won't be constantly be backing up data.


[2 Points] DopeD00d:

I've checked out your site and I'm impressed thus far. I am not currently vending on any other darknet sites but am considering starting up very soon and may very well choose to be a vendor on The Free Market. You clearly state the $50 vendor application fee but you also mention vendor bond (which I've pieced together will be a refundable amount of coin that is held on the site to try to prevent FE scams etc). My question(s) are the following:

Is this vendor bond mandatory for all vendors, or just those that wish to be able to have access to that % of early finalization that you mentioned.

How much bond are you taking up on vendors?

If I were to put up, for instance, 2 btc to be held as bond, would I be able to finalize on 2 btc worth of orders right off the bat since you guys would have collateral in the event I was attempted to scam?


[2 Points] 42jjjuuubbbeeee93933:

Someone mentioned multisig already, this has been tried and has failed every single time, its a waste of time because buyers dont benefit and cant be bothered to learn. But no one yet has tried 2 of 2 multisig, between vendor and market to keep the market/andorLEO/HACKERS from stealing everyones coins while still maintaining the purpose of escrow, to keep vendors from cutting and running. Something to consider if you want to be different otherwise gl.


[2 Points] youtakesally:

No multi-sig? Goodbye...


[1 Points] impost_r:

TrySarahTops.


[1 Points] We_Are_Never_Safe:

-comment overwritten-


[1 Points] blackhand25:

Every time I attempt to submit a request to support I receive an error.


[1 Points] ___OpenMarket___:

Is The Free Market still up? I can't seem to access it at all via the .onion URL.


[0 Points] californiadreams1:

Hi there!

You've got mail regarding my application A18489685. Check your messages.


[-1 Points] needarms:

That name is too big for a market that doesn't allow firearm sales. What's your reason for this?


[-3 Points] None:

Absoloutly Terrible design. I am sorry but you need a better design. I am not sure if you are an inexperienced coder but this design is terrible. I believe a buyer signin is best.