What if someone built a dark web market based on a block-chain model? I know it sounds stupid...but hear me out! ;)
I am thinking that it could be designed so that multiple people could run a "node". Then if LE takes one down, it doesn't matter because there are more of the same site still up...even if police got a copy of the software and tried to modify it, it won't work because the other nodes will reject it immediately.
What about an admin?...you need an administrator or moderators to control things don't you?
Well...not necessarily. I think you could solve that using a consensus based approach...where users vote on open vendor disputes to solve them. Users votes can have more or less weight to them based on their rank in the rank system.
So, ok...maybe we can live without a designated leader, because people WILL fill those roles if they have the opportunity..for free. The site itself decides which users are valuable and given points for good deeds, which levels them up to the next rank.
BUT, the site isn't cheap to run....why would people run a "node" if they risk getting caught for no monetary reward? The DNM collects fees and people who run nodes can be "paid" from the pool of money the site generates. If the site does better, then the people getting paid will do better. At certain ranks, people could be eligible to get paid for being a moderator. People would get paid based on how much the site makes in revenue, how many people are contributing and what they are contributing, their rank, if they run a node, and many other details that would make the ranking system interesting/braggable....ya know? Maybe other rewards like trophy's or achievements...level to infinity
The sites wallet security is a roadblock....because if LE takes down a server and can access the site code, then it must not be able to read the wallet address and it's private key. Noone should be able to get to it...since the node software will be freely available to anyone that wants to run a node and take the risk.
Could cryptography be used in a way that encrypts the wallet info, but still allows the site itself to decrypt the wallet freely without giving away it's secrets?
Some vendor disputes could be solved by just refunding money from the pool....if it was a bad scam that deserved some empathy from the community...would be something else the users could specifically vote on and decide based on the consensus of the vote.
People can certainly buy server space to set up a hidden service that is "just set it and forget it" anonymously....so if they could run multiple and get paid by the site, there would be motivation for people help and take risks in such an endeavor ;)
It would be cool to see an autonomous darknet market that would be near impossible to shut down, or do an exit scam, and disputes are settled fairly based on consensus. Also no single person gets to hoard tons of cash from site revenue...and then lose it to LE or get hacked and stolen ;)
Does anyone have any thoughts on how this might work....or share how they see it fail?
The idea you propose potentially puts all users at risk of consensus attacks, and anyone running the mining software(a blockchain needs mining to add anything to the blockchain in a secure way) would be considered a party to the criminal activity. It's not like TOR where you can claim you use it for privacy reasons. It's also not technically thought out. What service will your blockchain provide? Will it hold the code for the markets(what does that accomplish, since a malicious actor can still modify the code)? I think you are describing a p2p network, but that still won't tell you whether or not another node is controlled by LE unless every node can inspect the entire code and memory contents of every other node(and even then confirming that all nodes are identical would be tough).
A better idea(not mine) is to build a network on top of an existing blockchain with complex smart contracts, but I have no idea of the current feasibility(Ethereum contracts are hard, just look at the DAO hack). At least this way the entire network is built on top of a very legitimate blockchain that can't be labelled as "just for drugs and fraud".