In this post, I will talk about dark web marketplaces and what they are all about.
These dark web marketplaces operate more like traditional e-commerce platforms. However, instead of selling clothes and gadgets, you’ll find a wide range of listings for illegal goods and services from counterfeit documents and stolen data to banned substances.
What’s more, at one moment, a marketplace could be a beehive of activities, and the next second, it could completely disappear. Perhaps it’s the nature of this concealed economy, and hence it requires one to stay up-to-date with the current major players in 2025. In fact, new markets come into the light quickly with a great deal of traction – sometimes within a week or so, and the old ones could disappear without notice.
When it comes to investigators, cyber threat teams, or anyone that monitors emerging threats, the dark web marketplaces are the place to look – monitoring these spaces shouldn’t be optional in 2025. To access dark web marketplaces, you need a special browser such as Tor to hide your identity and location.
In this article, we’ve done the legwork and put together a list of dark web marketplaces that you should keep a close eye on in 2025. Whether you’re monitoring stolen data, tracking threat actors, or simply trying to keep up with the digital era, these are the top dark web marketplaces where a wide range of illicit activity takes place.
Table of Contents
How Dark Web Marketplaces Work
Just pose for a moment and picture a dark web marketplace to be a black market version of Amazon. Ideally, they’re concealed websites that you can only access with Tor, and individuals can sell and buy products anonymously. Usually, the products in this space are illegal, things like stolen data, drugs, and hacking tools, among others.
They work like the normal surface e-commerce platforms, where the seller posts some listings and buyers place their orders. The payments are often made using crypto like Moreno and Bitcoin.
To ensure that both the seller and the buyer are protected, most marketplaces use the escrow system, where money is held and released to a seller only once the buyer confirms that they’ve received the sold product. Everything in the dark web marketplace is designed to be completely anonymous and difficult to trace.
What’s Found in the Dark Web Marketplaces?
Here’s the thing: the dark web markets are notorious as far as illicit products are concerned. However, some people like whistleblowers and journalists, use the dark web for legal activities, and they use it for its anonymous nature. But the huge junk of things sold here are illegal and decidedly more dangerous.
Some of the things that you’ll find in the dark web marketplaces are things like credentials for applications, malware kits, exploits, and banking information.
These marketplaces are home to illegal drug dealings, where you’ll find illegal drugs in almost all the dark web marketplaces. Also, you’ll find guns and weapons in these markets. Explicit content is another notorious product in the dark net markets – in fact, it’s here that you’ll find all sorts of disturbing content, including child exploitation and non-consensual recordings.
The anonymous nature of the dark web markets is the major appealing factor for sellers and buyers. In fact, most of the markets have gone a notch higher and are now using traditional web domains like mirror sites to gain the attention of users – it’s a way that offers better routes for less experienced attackers.
Top 7 Dark Web Marketplaces to Watch Today
One thing is for sure: there are several dark web marketplaces available. In fact, each day, new markets are introduced into the mix, and it’s the same rate at which most of them disappear.Â
Most dark web markets offer illegal products and counterfeit goods, while others directly allow threat actors to compromise organizations.
Here are the top seven dark web marketplaces that are worth monitoring in 2025 for advanced cybersecurity threat alerts:
1. Awazon Market
- Status: Online (popular)
- Onion Address 1: awazonep3val6gxuzcl2ydllhnwb7quh5ynh76cyc3axkfoqhlbrb2id.onion/auth/register_now
- Onion Address 2: awazone7gyw54yau4vb6gvcac4yhnhcf3dkl3cpfxkywqstrgyroliid.onion/auth/register_now
At the moment, the status of this platform is offline, and you can easily access it via the dark and clear web. Interestingly, Awazon is user-friendly as you only need to register to get started. The good news is that the registration process is a walk in the park, as it only requires an untraceable email as well as a random username – it doesn’t require the user to confirm the email.
Also, it has a user-friendly interface with easy-to-use search functions that make it one of the best dark web marketplaces. In fact, verified vendors have ranked it as the most trusted reputation and a safe marketplace that’s almost a direct replacement of AlphaBay Market, which was taken down.
Awazon was established in 2020, and it marks itself differently from the rest by claiming to offer a “revolutionary” variation on safe anonymous commerce. Additionally, it features robust DDoS mitigation as well as military-grade security protocols to guarantee security and privacy. A distinct add-on is the construction without JavaScript support.
Ideally, from an all-around perspective, Awazon Market is one that most vendors look into, making it one of those that you need to keep a close eye on for all actions.
2. Exploit
- Status: Offline (was popular)
- Onion Address: N/A
Exploit is one of the dark web marketplaces that has gained attraction over a short period, and it is worth keeping an eye on. It’s more of a forum than the traditional vendor market, and it facilitates the ability of criminals to transact.
It’s a Russian-language-based dark web market whereby the initial access brokers (IABs) make money from the description of an organization’s network environment.
Perhaps, the market is regarded as the hotbed of this hidden economy where cybercriminals secure ransomware, stolen personal information, phishing kits, and botnets. Besides, Exploit is a private group that’s often associated with huge operations like attacks with motivations that target critical infrastructure for all NATO member states.
3. Russian Market
- Status: Online (popular)
- Onion Address: http://rumarkstror5mvgzzodqizofkji3fna7lndfylmzeisj5tamqnwnr4ad.onion/login
The status of this market is still active, meaning that you can still visit for all types of services. Names can be deceiving, and contrary to its name, this dark web market is an English-language forum that features a plethora of stolen data.
Interestingly, you can easily access the platform via the clear or dark web, and it’s very easy to sign up to the platform. However, all the newly registered members are required to have at least a $50 crypto deposit for them to access any listings on the platform.
Moreover, it offers a wide range of products, including credit card dumps, access to particular Remote Desktop Protocol clients, stolen credentials, compromised cookies, and several others.
The prices for stolen data on the platform can vary, depending on the value of the data, from as low as $10 to more than $600.
4. BidenCash
- Status: Offline (was popular)
- Onion Address: N/A
This is one of the largest dark web marketplaces that trades sensitive financial data transactions. It was launched in 2022, and it’s a platform where you can buy and sell SSH login credentials, stolen credit card numbers, as well as personally identifiable information (PII).
Moreover, BidenCash provides free samples of stolen data, usually to attract more customers. Besides, it uses a strong verification process to get rid of scammers.
5. Brian’s Club
- Status: Offline (popular)
- Onion Address: https://brians.cc/register
Brian’s Club is a credit card fraud as well as a personal information marketplace. It’s one of the largest dark web marketplaces that you can easily access on the clear web.
The platform does not only sell full credit card data but also a lot of sensitive information like birth dates and Social Security numbers.
Unfortunately, in 2019, there was a law enforcement sweep on the platform that showed BriansClub earned over $126 million. However, even with that, the platform still exists and continues to advertise stolen data.
6. STYX Market
- Status: Offline(popular)
- Onion Address: N/A
Some refer to STYX Market as the OG dark web marketplace in terms of financial crimes. It’s one of the most prominent markets in the dark web that trade in stolen credit card data, hacked bank accounts, and several other services that enable cryptocurrency laundering.
The market has a strong verification process, which makes it an exclusive option for most vendors. Interestingly, they have a Telegram channel that offers users live updates. Moreover, it supports a wide range of crypto payments, including Bitcoin and Monero.
7. Exodus Marketplace
- Status: Online (popular)
- Onion Address: https://exodusmarket.io/login
This is arguably the newest dark web market on the list, as it originated in 2024, and it has attracted many. At the moment, the platform is an invite-only marketplace, and the developers have specialized in selling “stealer logs.”
When we’re talking about stealer logs, it refers to deadly small files that contain a plethora of malicious data like stolen logins, financial information, and personal information obtained by infostealer malware.
Currently, Exodus market claims to have more than 7,000 bots, with every bot listed between $2 and $10. Therefore, that low bot price can encourage more acts of cybercrime.
History of the Dark Web Marketplaces
The dark web marketplaces didn’t start yesterday; in fact, they trace back to the mighty Silk Road, which was launched in 2011 and was the first big platform where individuals could sell and buy drugs anonymously using Bitcoin. The site attracted a lot of attention, and it was taken down by the FBI in 2013.
However, since then, a plethora of copycat platforms have risen and gone: Dream Market, AlphaBay, Hansa, and several others. Some of the sites are taken down by the law enforcement agencies, and others just disappear suddenly without notice, with users’ money.
Therefore, it’s been a rat and cat game between law enforcement and cybercriminals, with every new dark web marketplace trying everything possible to be smarter and secure than the last.
The Dark Web Economy
It’s easy to say that as new markets emerge, several are taken down as well, and over the past recent years, the economy of these marketplaces show a decline as the estimated revenue of sales has gone down.
According to the blockchain data company report, the estimated revenue went down from around $3.1 billion in 2021 to merely above $2 billion in 2024. Perhaps the downward trend can be associated with the international law enforcement efforts to crack down on these marketplaces over many years.
For instance, the takedown of Hydra Market in 2022 put a major shift in the economy of the dark web markets by far. Still, the work of taking down these marketplaces is on, and we might expect a continuous decline in their revenue.
However, law enforcement faces its own challenges. For example, they might take down a marketplace, only for the same market to re-emerge elsewhere. But all the same, they could have succeeded in destroying a provider’s reputation and trust in the offered products in some way.
Additionally, now most threat actors are turning to Telegram as a new channel to leverage their anonymous profiles as well as end-to-end encryption. However, as much as it’s an option, most actors still are inclined to the dark web.
Conclusion
Several dark web marketplaces emerge almost immediately as law enforcement takes down others. These markets sell mainly illegal products like stolen information, drugs, and weapons, and all transactions are done via cryptocurrency. Also, the dark web markets are not easily accessible, but they only exist on the Tor network, which offers users anonymity and security.
To ensure that all transactions are completed smoothly, payments are done in crypto and held in escrow until the buyer confirms receiving the goods. In fact, when it comes to dark web market transactions, the only exposed channel is delivery of goods through the postal system.Â
Nevertheless, as long as the digital landscape keeps evolving, the dark web markets are showing no signs of going anywhere anytime soon. That’s why they need robust monitoring for security threats.
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About the Author:
Daniel Segun is the Founder and CEO of SecureBlitz Cybersecurity Media, with a background in Computer Science and Digital Marketing. When not writing, he's probably busy designing graphics or developing websites.
