Warning, tin foil hat predictions time: I believe AlphaBay was largely shut down for three reasons, in a particular order, that other, newer markets need to pay the fuck attention to. The bay was truly a free market, the only thing banned was the trade of child porn, and for good reason, that's gotten many darknet sites raided in the past. They allowed not only the sale of ANY drug, they allowed the sale of misrepresented drugs, guns, ammunition, fake identification, passports, stolen credit card and account information. Idealistically, it's beautiful, a truly free black market, untouchable by LE for years. Everyone assumed it was created by Russian carders, hiding out in a server bunker in Siberia or some shit.
Then this story breaks, and all the investigators can talk about, in this order, is FENTANYL, GUNS, and STOLEN CC INFO. To law enforcement, a market like this, acting in very international waters, must be directly responsible for the distribution of potentially life-ending material, be it an overdose, a shooting, or the massive amount of identity theft occuring in the US's and other countries' borders. The LSD, the molly, the coke, no one gives a fuck. Sure, LE is happy that side of the market is shut down too, but it's not what gave them the warrants for arrest or the funding for the investigation. Law enforcement, at least this high up the chain, realizes people are gonna get that on the corner if they can't find it online. But those other three things? You need a specialized market linking the average Joe to someone with real connections in the underground world, a kind of relationship that would be impossible outside of a darknet market.
All these articles coming out right now might as well be telling all the devious young coders out there exactly how to stay out of their spotlight. Sure, this ruins the whole idealistic concept of a truly free market, but at a huge gain. I for one am for it, we've already seen a couple of smaller markets promise to implement change immediately to lower their risk factors. And honestly, fuck the fent dealers, that shit is KILLING people. Fuck the arms dealers for the same reason, that shit draws so much unnecessary attention to the community. And a big fuck you to the carders, ruining lives on a daily basis. It's time for a change in the community, one towards a truly benevolent open drug market. If it's not on the onions yet (DHL I'm looking at you, don't fuck this up) then it will be in a year or two tops.
Stay safe everyone. I was a long time AlphaBay user, looking for refuge after this storm. After this, I don't care which market has the best selection, give me security and a well implemented multisig system and I'll be happy.
We should all take a moment to praise DHL for banning fent.