We're just days away now from the official opening of Havana! You might have heard people talking about Havana on /r/darknetmarkets or The Hub forum. The upcoming launch hasn't been the best kept secret. Well, we've been working our butts off over the last 6 months developing Havana. What is Havana? Well first we'll tell you what Havana isn't. Havana is not another lookalike traditional escrow market. Here's what's different about Havana:
Havana market is a pure multi-sig market. Specifically that means Havana will have no market controlled wallets, no traditional escrow, and limited FE at buyer option, no exit scams, no theft.
Havana and its sister market, Absolem, will be drugs only markets. There will be no fraud, carders, weapons, counterfeiters, or assassins. (Havana will be cannabis and mushrooms only. Absolem will be all drugs, and will be following a couple of weeks after the Havana opening). Both markets will be USA-only initially, expanding globally only when we're sure we have the necessary infrastructure and support resources to do it right.
Vendor accounts are by invitation only and limited to the best vendors in their product categories. We don't understand why other markets allow just anyone to set up a store (with or without a bond, a bad vendor is a bad vendor). We're pretty sure a market doesn't need 10,000+ products for it to have an excellent selection of merchandise by top vendors with products across all price ranges. We're trying something different here that we hope makes a big difference.
On Sunday, vendors will be starting to get familiar with the setup and start stocking merchandise. We'll also be inviting many buyers to come check out Havana. Until the real merchandise is in stores, we have sample products listed for $1.00 which will give buyers the chance to see for themselves just how different this multisig market is. We'll even refund your $1.00. Make sure you finish the last step and finalize to get your refund. Invites for buyer accounts for the beta test are available. Just post a request on the Buyer Invites thread at /r/havanaMarket.
We can already hear the multisig naysayers. People saying "it's been tried before", "buyers will never use multisig-only market", or that it's "too complicated", etc. Before you put those posts in the comments ask for a beta invitation and try out a multisig transaction. We think you'll change your mind about multisig. It really is effortless and transparent from the buyer's side of the transaction. We can also hear the other people saying "we've seen that before, multisig that is easy to use is not safe". Well, at Havana that just isn't true. But we'll leave it to you to make your own judgments about Havana.
If you decide to participate in the beta test, please be understanding of glitches or bugs because that is the purpose of the beta; to identify and fix issues before a wider release. Also, bear in mind that our developers have a lot of energy invested in this market. We're sure they would appreciate it if comments and feedback were helpful and constructive instead of critical. We also request that you not report bugs to outside forums or other venues. Bug squashing is what beta tests are for, after all. If all goes smoothly we should be ready to launch after a few days of closed beta testing.
We'll keep you posted with any changes to that schedule. Thanks!
Personally I like the idea of a drugs only market. Is the multi sig implementation make use of wallets that our completely outside of the markets control (aside from being holder of the 3rd key obviousky)? The name Absolem sounds very familiar but I can't put my finger on it. Was it mentioned in this sub recently? I know I heard that word recently.
How do you decide which vendors to invite? There are a lot of good vendors. Many aren't well known. Just curious.
Good luck!