After the SR2 bust wired.com ran a story about the Russian language darknet market RAMP. In case you've missed it:
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/oldest-drug-market-is-russian/
The concept is dead simple:
- Communication and payment are arranged between the buyer and vendor outside of the market. So in that sense it's more of a craigslist than a Silk Road. This eliminates any possibility of the market operator walking away with everyone's coin, or a market hack.
- Escrow service is available for those who want it. I wasn't able to create an account so I'm not sure of all the details of how that works (any Russian speakers here?)
- Drugs are the only product on the menu. Anything else will get you banned, including selling one drug under the guise of another. I've been thinking for a while that part of a market's profits should be spent towards lab testing of random vendors' product.
- The market does not take a percentage on each sale and there isn't any vendor bond, but there are monthly fees depending on the drug you sell and whether you want to place banner ads, etc.
The only disadvantage I can see compared to our SR-type system is that you don't automatically get escrow for every purchase. IMHO not having to worry about all this market drama is totally worth it. So if anyone is willing to start an international version of RAMP - you have my full support.
Not that I don't enjoy reading the shitstorm soap opera posts that happen here every other month, but sometimes I just want to deal with the vendors I know, get my drugs and move on with my life.
The concept already exists for psychedelics, in the form of the Majestic Garden. It seems to be working there due to the presence of a trusted body to oversee it (The LSD Avengers), the general demeanor of psychedelic vendors, and a relatively low number of vendors which keeps competition low and reduces the need for shilling.
I don't think the concept is sustainable on a larger scale, unless you set up something like safeorscam.com, where you need a hard to obtain invite to provide ratings, and a karma system that will quickly ban you if you have referred suspected shills.
Having the operators conduct purity tests is only possible if there are a low number of vendors, as for the tests to be in any way accurate (and for the safety of the operators) they need to be purchased anonymously. Buying product from every new vendor would be expensive and time consuming, and the vendors that are most likely to have adulterated product (cocaine and heroin) have zero control over their supply chain, so every new batch would have to be considered untrusted and need a retest.