whether or not these sites come back, this last 3-4 months have broken an entire community. In terms of marketcap, we're probably down 85% conservatively. This sickens me.
No one has each other's backs, everyone is salty as fuck. Cynicism is at an all-time high. It is pretty evident that for the first time in half of a decade, LE is winning a war that should not be possible to win. Look at the crypto space, look at all of the decentralized applications unfolding before us. look at fucking bittorrent or any other P2P system, and how they have thrived. Why are we incapable of making this an impetus to evolve and aspire to? To grow into something that is granted, and can only ever be sought to manage by way of liason to agree to keep dangerous drugs like fentanyl, especially branded as something else and improperly dosed out of suburbia? It can and will happen. Perception of everything is changing, and for a long time we have been gaining traction as an alternative to cartels, violence, and the more unsavory aspects of organized crime. This has been documented.
FreeRoss gained a ton of attraction from respectable people. We had brief allies in libertarians. What we do not need in these next moments is to continually be greedy and contribute to the epidemic that is unsafe, improperly dosed drugs. Anyone that would argue that nothing should be off-limits, i say choose your battles, because it WILL lose the war. We have made enemies of the general public, and we are the ones that have been left behind as things like bitcoin have become accepted and embraced.
I saw an estimate a while ago that we were 1-2% of the global drug trade, but were on pace to be >40% within a decade or so. I want this world to happen, and i want the best of us to be the stewards for that movement into the mainstream. The majority of us are so much better than the animals preying on each other in the streets. Lets stop giving them excuses to demonize us.
How do we start? What we truly need is less reliance on this sub and more than one or two other centralized options to discuss things and review each other, that is number one. The backup plan is a great idea to start, but something akin to a bitmessage channel would ensure no reliance on things that can be seized and controlled. For markets we need something totally decentralized, and completely reliant on things like XMR where privacy is by default. We also need the norm to be TAILS or better. Everyone needs to do their research. It is well worth it and will assist your in other endeavors to learn about the OPSEC and to spend the time running a monero daemon/client until you are proficient in its usage.
We NEED to give things like Openbazaar a shot, even as a 2nd or 3rd marketplace, when the next Hansa/Traderoute reboot happens. I hope no one will ever take for granted again that having a couple semi-decent options with a seemingly legit and solid team is enough to prevent this from happening again and again and again. How many more downfalls can we take? Does anyone believe this will truly be the worst of it? but rather than adopt that defeatist attitude, lets all remember what we are doing here. Profits is number one, but don't discount the value we have as a collective. If you can provide to someone an honest and safe, responsible alternative to what so many people go through, pat yourself on the back, you are bettering lives in many cases.
Most of us do the bare minimum to order our drugs, and we just go on about our lives. I can tell you that this is a tremendous mistake regardless of how much you spend/sell. Put thought into what to do with your profits. Instead of cashing it all, hedge with the currencies you are using and should be using. Make some smart crypto investments. Monero is one of them. This space will grow exponentially. This right now is STILL the greatest opportunity for the acquisition of wealth any of us will ever see in our lifetimes, and most of us just let it pass by, or spend time trying to scam each other.
I am not the technical mind to give these things, but i will be here for the war, ride or die, until it is won or until i end up like ross. History will look favorably upon us if we can agree to adapt. I encourage everyone to be more active and willing to assist others. Use more than one market, don't put all your eggs in one basket, don't allow yourself to be in this position again. Refuse to use a market that doesn't properly use true multi-sig, and better yet do the bare minumum on a centralized market and work together to a trusted review system and direct deals, be it on forums or something else. Most importantly, up your opsec game. Bitcoin, Tumblers, Tor browser, Windows-- forget about it. I recommend trying a live-install of Qubes/whonix, or at the very least TAILS.
And lets explore Openbazaar for now until a better system comes along. Nothing to worry about if you isolate your traffic properly. Note that it is very difficult to get OB2 running in tails, but I saw a couple guides here two days ago, and they were not difficult at all to follow on whonix (don't use whonix on windows. try something like Qubes or at the very least something like linux-mint. You will thank yourself if you take the time to do these things.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@gousasin/how-to-install-and-use-openbazaar-2-anonymously-over-tor-inside-whonix-workstation https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@gousasin/3c337y-how-to-install-and-use-the-monero-gui-wallet-anonymously-over-tor-inside-whonix-workstation
This is what happens when you do meth and then post on reddit