[GeneralQuestions] Do you guys think the Darknet will exist in it's current form 2-5 years from now? Any predictions towards the future of the Darknet?

Five years seems like a long ass time if you consider Bitcoin has only been around for six and SR only existed for around 3-4 years. So I have been thinking about what will happen to TOR and the Darknet down the road in 2-5 years? Will it still exists like it does today, centralized market with everyone's coins being held by a central authority? Or will we shift to multi-sig only markets after a few more scams, seizures and hacks? Will I2P flourish? Or will it just die out as another Darknet solution? Will things like Syscoin and OpenBazaar be relevant at all? Please share your opinions, speculations and Bailey Jay poems.


Comments


[45 Points] GrandWizardsLair:

The Grand Wizard expects to see a shift toward p2p/decentralized marketplaces as soon as user-friendly apps are available. Any p2p market will have to implement multisig and so we've been encouraging customers to try 2-of-3 for themselves and get comfortable with it. Multisig definitely has a learning curve but once you've done a few transactions you'll find it really is not a lot more difficult than GPG.

Of the three candidates the Grand Wizard has seen Bitbay is presently envisioning a decentralized but moderated marketplace which will remove illegal listings. That means they will be useless for our purposes. It also means Bitbay is doomed to failure: it meets no need which isn't already being adequately served by eBay, Craigslist and other large centralized marketplaces.

Shadow Market requires that users adopt not only new software but also a new cybercurrency. Given the lengthy history of scams in the cybercurrency world that's a pretty big hurdle. And while Shadowcoin brags about all its super privacy features, at present the simple act of buying it draws attention. (At this point chances are good that anyone buying Shadowcoin is looking to use it for nefarious purposes and the market cap is miniscule next to Bitcoin's).

Edit: The Grand Wizard has learned that Shadow Market plans to offer an open community Shadowcoin/Bitcoin exchange. This would take care of many of the objections I listed if they are able to implement it. (The Grand Wizard thinks this is a pretty big "if," and notes that it would require having a sizable pot of bitcoins sitting in a hot wallet -- something which has historically proven irresistible to hackers and which could lead to many of the problems we already see with centralized escrow).

OpenBazaar is probably the most promising of the three. Unfortunately, the latest iteration of OpenBazaar relies on UDP and so can't be used on Tor. This is not necessarily a deal-breaker as it can run on i2p, but again that requires adopters to not only learn OpenBazaar but also master another clunky and complicated system. (And given how badly the Shit Road Regurgitated admin has blackened the name of i2p with his constant Reddit shilling, it's possible nobody will ever take eepsites seriously again).


[15 Points] None:

Upvoted for your username.


[7 Points] Erthryol:

I'm thinking centralized markets will still be around to some degree, but with vendors becoming bigger and playing a greater role in the market(s) themselves. Possibly to the degree that a "normal" market is ran by six-twelve dealers, sizable enough to not want to split as individuals, large enough as a group to keep each other honest and with enough continual orders to be found out pretty fast if things go bad.

Why not multisig? Well, I'm kind of hoping perhaps it will become a norm, but I'm not really seeing it. It's been around for ages and seems sensible enough, but.. it's not as comfortable. While it's become a selling point as a market to offer multisig, it's always also been a selling point to offer regular escrow. People are used to regular escrow, because it's how everything else (anything with a credit card, two layers if ebay, paypal, amazon, etc) works. There's no particular reason you couldn't have third party escrow or even some level of cryptographic assurance from regular online businesses, but no one really does. Some people get scammed, most people don't and the cost is just baked into the cost of doing business. There's a good chance that's how it'll go here too.

That said, I think there might be a shot with something implementing multisig with trusted "others" doing it for you as an option. In other words, not forgo regular escrow all together, but revamp it so that it works exactly as multisig, but with a party (or the market itself) doing all of it for you. This wouldn't be any more secure than regular escrow, but you could follow along (and see what you would have done had you done it yourself) which might lead to more people eventually saying "Oh well, actually I'll just go ahead and do this".

Decentralized markets are a bit similar - good idea but it's just too different. Again, a solution might be to keep a central point (or several) but which aren't really more than a correctly set up and functioning web interface to the decentralized market. There's still a need for a central point of trust to a degree, people simply don't have the patience for formal webs, but that could easily just be a web interface listing everyone on the decentralized who has earned their trust and thus key sign.

I do think something will eventually arise to manage keys better. Gpg/pgp is nice in the sense that it works, but really it's ridiculously unfriendly. There should be something that stores all public keys seen and can produce them along with when they were seen, possibly some context. There should be an easy way to co-sign and swap co-signatures. Basically everything that happens on reddit (who said what, who replied, what got deleted by a mod, etc) could be done without central trust just by slapping on signatures (yes, you could see deleted posts, for instance, but for the most part I'd expect people to leave default to "One of the mods deleted this = don't show it" - no one wants to swim in spam and scammers).

Ok, so that's long and probably not a poem.


[6 Points] youaintsheet:

Drone delivery.


[6 Points] belizehq:

mm I think we might have to go trough the dark ages - times when we do direct deals with the vendors and use various escrow 3rd party sites with off-site wallets when/if those pop up. I think we all have 2-3 trusted guys who are fine with 50/50 payment, plus there's the group of "legendary" vendors like FM,GentsC,GammaG... I guess we'd then trade good vendors via our secret mails and pgp, ocasionally getting hurt, occasionally making cryptic reddit posts, occasionally receiving PMs like

"heyyy wats up my drug friend. go drug club amirite. the police do their jobs and try to lock up criminals but they SUUUCCK. so listen bro, i was looking for marijuana syringes and all my drug and human slave traffiker had was meth blotters. bummer amirite? vortex, gammagoblins, shulgin, veins. so anyways, I had a wicked "heroine wd" last nightg and I was hoping you'd help a non officer of the law, specialized in narcotics, out? I need vendor Xs name and addy, if you could? or vendor Y? if you have neithr then give yours bro, I'll gome over and we can do lithium together, I also have bath salths (lavender and rose) and methane crystals. hmu at XXXX XXXXXXXXXX or at suckmyglockb@peggyweddingphoto.com

or the markets will get better security and we'll just continue as usual. I'm hoping for the latter. Dreamgoal - 20 markets by the end of 2016


[4 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] MXEMan:

I hope that Grand Wizard is right. I fear that he is not.

I would love to see decentralized markets come to pass for all of the reasons stated in GW's post which is lucid and erudite (and leads MXEMan to assume GW either does meth or coke because he has so much time to write considered posts and do as much vending as he does :) ).

I believe what we'll see is an evolution toward a Canal St model wherein you are offered anything and everything on the street (the centralized marketplace in our case) and once ready to make your purchase led in to a storefront or alley (the vendor's private shop) to complete the transaction.

[For our non-US friends, Canal St is in the Chinatown section and a must see for any trip to NYC, I assume but do not know for a fact that you can buy anything there]


[3 Points] cocochanelx:

They haven't shut down the drug market IRL, they wont be able to shut it down via the internet.

Cut off one head, several will pop up in its place.


[3 Points] None:

Maybe they'll finally realize the war on drugs will never be won and laws will change. But I doubt it.


[2 Points] Taylorswiftfan69:

It'll die down and people will go back to private communities and direct deals.


[2 Points] tattood:

As others have said, it'll become decentralized, but I see something like TMG as the future. At TMG, we're all psychedelic enthusiasts, and we are able to interact with the vendors and other users in one place. We can leave reviews, talk to people, AND place orders directly with vendors. It's so much easier than going email+pgp imo, and it's much less intimidating for the uninitiated. I see these types of forums/unofficial markets popping up for all kinds of drugs. I think in 5 years it will be rare to be able to buy acid, meth, porn, and these refund scams on the same market - there's no reason for that! Sure, we're all currently illegal, but we're obviously very different, and there's no reason for everything to be in the same place.


[2 Points] mapexman:

Yes it isn't possible to stop it!


[2 Points] CarlMarkForceVII:

You guys are awesome, never thought this would get so much attention.


[1 Points] II-NataYmleg:

My prediction: Next year will see the emergence of secure 1-on-1 trading via P2P ad-hoc darknets. In that regard I'm eagerly awaiting the marketplace add-on to Shadow. Throw in a properly implemented Web of Trust and it's a big game changer for me.

Besides of nerds and early adopters, the unwashed masses will still be ripped off on half-assed centralized markets that have (for various reasons) zero incentive for pushing technological boundaries, just as a fast food chain has no incentive on serving healthy food.

Still, it's better than forcing people back onto the streets where they may be subject to physical violence.

My most confident bet (as it would also be in the interest of the markets) is that we will see support for additional cryptocurrencies in various places, especially for those technically derived from Bitcoin as they are easier to implement.

3-5 years from now the darknet trade will have matured and diversified, with many more options for participants to get into touch, more payment options, but also more modes of delivery; for example vendor networks would maintain regional courier services in order to circumvent mail screening.

Online trade with psychoactives will be significantly more mainstream than today, because again, who likes to be beaten and robbed on the street?

Developments in legislation as well as public perception of drug use will have a lot less of an impact than one might think, especially over the course of just a few years.

If /r/DarkNetMarkets still exists then, it will perhaps have an LE wall of shame, as a lot more officers or even governments will have been ingloriously involved in darknet activities until then.


[1 Points] earthmoonsun:

If MaidSAFE is really as good as it says, it will change the whole internet and make the darknet and its markets obsolete.


[1 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

I think darknet markets selling mail order are here to stay. Many of the massive multibillion retailers started out as Victorian marketstall holders.

Most vendors see this as just a temporary thing, but I'm in this for the long run. The only tangible asset anybody has is their good name.

Do you think the Rolling Stones looked beyond 1965? Did they think they would still be a massive touring act?

I think multisig isn't the way things will progress. I think the standard escrow will dominate. but that will be the ONLY onsite wallet.

As soon as a customer releases the escrow, it then goes to another onsite "wallet", with more jumping through hoops and shennanigans before we get paid.

This will change to automatic withdrawals ie be released straight to the vendor's offsite wallet. The marketplace owner will get his 4% for being the fair arbiter that an escrow requires.

This is an inevitable development because, er, that's what we've decided


[1 Points] None:

Dude, these dnms aren't new by any means. People have been setting up p2p and direct exchange systems since the 90s. Admittedly the community then was simply a few hundred people but it still existed a survived under different cryptocurrencies. However, I don't think the convential darknets we know and love will be around by 2020


[1 Points] glavnogo-inzhenera:

Retroshare is getting mobile patched. Then getting a payment plugin for multisig. Then the darknet shifts to VPSs VPN and invite only.


[1 Points] curt_SHILLing:

Obviously they will not be the same even a year from now. Should they be the same? Fuck no. The drug game is always changing, once someone figures out your SOP you gotta change it up. Tech is also always changing, though we have learned in recent years not to the advantage of the privacy advocate but rather the opposite.

The markets cannot sustain another large exit scam (which, unfortunately, are bound to happen at some point) or take down of a large market..in their current form. Right now a lot of people (customers) are somewhat complacent, caught their breath after Evo and everything appears to be close to "normal" again, but I bet most, if not all, upper echelon vendors have shit their pants and are changing up their OPSEC...as fun as this seems it is still the game guys, same rules apply.

Unfortunatley, I dont think that the markets will change until forced, which wont happen until vendors force the change (customers are a dime a dozen, they'll always be around). The smart ones didnt lose much from Evo (should be withdrawing coins in the account at least daily), and I know they are thinking about this - but the current response seems to be 'well I'll move to a market that I trust more/is more secure/not run by carders/etc/etc.' Those markets generally still have centralized escrow. Buyers will follow the good vendors (they already have cult like followings) and the good vendors know this is business like no other - sometimes you need to cut your losses and take a sales hit while establishing on a new market.

Hopefully some vendors will come up with something...Maybe someone with the knowledge and ability can consult with some prominent vendors to come up with a solution that works for them. Its not a mystery as to what works for buyers - we want escrow of some sort until vendors are established...like i said, it's still the game, same rules apply as on the street - your dude can peace out with the money just as easily as a vendor...


[1 Points] None:

Wonder were carl mark force lV be in 2-5 years? My guess is on all 4