Why is there not more interest in/discussion of The Marketplace?

With all of the drama surrounding the major markets lately, such as the sheep fiasco, stolen coins, ddos's, and SR2 & TorMarket arguing, I'm not sure why more people aren't talking about The Marketplace.

Disclaimer: We are a vendor at The Marketplace, however, we chose TMP (TMP does NOT equal TorMarketPlace) because we believe they are the most security competent market out currently.

The Marketplace has no on-site wallet. They use P2P escrow, which prevents (or at least greatly limits) their ability to run off with our coin.

The Marketplace forces pgp in all messages. This may seem like a pain, but we personally wouldn't have it any other way.

TMPSchultz, the main contact at TMP, comes off as EXTREMELY competent and professional when it comes to all things security and the site. All problems addressed have been solved relatively immediately, and we already have more faith in him than we do in any other person involved in any other market currently.

TMP uses I2P rather than Tor, which may be a major deterrent to many people. However, after getting your hands a little dirty, I2P is not much more complicated to use than Tor. As I understand it, I2P was made with hidden services in mind, but Tor was meant more for browsing clearweb anonymously. There are also plenty of guides in /r/TheMarketplace and on TMP forums that should have you up and running fairly quickly.

One downfall of TMP is the lack of many listings currently. How would a site grow without more people becoming interested in it though? There are vendors for several of the major products shipping in the US already, at the very least. We hope that more will come as soon as people understand that TMP already addresses some of the issues still present with other major markets.


Comments


[9 Points] fsacb3:

I'm all for it, but I have to follow the vendors. So far there's not much for sale on TM that interests me.


[6 Points] chroot_here:

I have a vendor account here. I was really excited to see an eepsite open but after I dug deeper the vendor backend is so lacking I had to pull my listings and shut down my operation here.

It's a good concept but the website is just not functional from a sellers point of view. I would much prefer to be here than on Tormarket but the owner has a lot of work ahead of him.

If Shultz continues to refine TMP it could be a contender at some point, but it's not even close to ready for primetime yet.


[4 Points] boobookittyface:

It's an awesome development, but it needs more vendors. The original SR made it free for vendors to join. Not everybody is a darknet vendor so some people may have to use other references to prove they are legit.


[3 Points] tetrahedon:

can anyone give an idea of whats in the catalog and where it ships from (screenshots?) before I go and download tails?


[2 Points] nsgiad:

From what I've read around here there are a few reasons. Mainly, it requires tails, now most of us know that running a read only version of tails is one of the more secure ways to do any business in these parts, but for many buyers, the need to balance convenience and safety tends to put tor our front because it's quicker and easier. Vendors need to obviously be much more secure in their dealings so the odds are higher they are putting safety first so hopping on a i2p site takes less time for them since they are already running tails.

I think the other main problem is that, as far as I have read, there is only The Marketplace on i2p. The general buyer is going to think "all that hassle, for one site, with few vendors, or stick on Tor and have all the rest" The lack of competition in i2p will stifle the adoption rate of it. Until there is a reason to go to i2p, most buyers will not, just like many people didn't go to Sheep or BMR, until SR went down.


[3 Points] Scimitar1:

Never lost a penny and transacted on atlantis, sr1,sr2, tormarket and sheep.

If it ain't broke, I won't fix it.

Best of luck though. I hope i2p goes big. We need competition.


[1 Points] sharpshooter789:

I don't think connecting to i2p is difficult. Its just annoying that bandwidth is based on how long your connected. So if you only use if occasionally its quite slow.

Also, I here that it isn't so safe for end users. That is what worries me. There's a discussion about i2p on the SR forums under the security section. In addition, I think kmk or Astor argued against it and their both extremely smart people. Even though SR 1 forums are down someone is hosting archived posts of important SR users including kmk and Astor. I'll look for a post by one of them later.


[1 Points] game_of_thrown:

It requires that evidence of darknet market use to be held on something you own. On markets where users don't require a GPG key, they also don't need persistent storage.


[1 Points] janus420:

"One downfall of TMP is the lack of many listings currently. "

^ U nailed it on the head buddy. I read the how to forums and can easily download and set it up but theres not enough vendors on there. If you can debate that, then plz be so kind as to list all vendors selling weed under an ounce in the USA that ships only to the USA. =))