I think there's a lot of us here who have been hanging around this circus we call darknetmarkets for long enough that we know how things work. Just like gravity in the physical world, I think there are some immutable laws of nature concerning darknetmarkets. So why are people still sitting under the apple tree same as before even though they keep getting conked on the head by the apples falling off the tree. So what do we know pretty muich for certain at this point?
First, darknet markets go away. I think we can pretty much agree that one way or another every darknet market will end up gone some day. Whether by exit scam, LE takedown, or even the rare, orderly shutdown (BMR is one of very very few examples).
Second, I think most agree that except for those rare BMR-like friendly shutdowns, market shutdowns whether by LE or exit scam inevitably leave most everyone involved with less money at the end. Sometimes a lot less money.
The exceptions to those generalizations are so rare that we might as well ignore the BMR type happy endings. So then why are hoards of people joining the latest batch of centralized escrow markets that hold money in market controlled wallets when it's really clear what's going to happen down the road. I don't get it.
Yes this is a post about multisig and why people are foolish not to demand multisig escrow at every darknetmarket. Are our brains so addled by drugs that we can't take the time to learn some pretty straightforward new ways of doing things? Do people not understand how multisig is better? Are they scared of change? Well I'm hella scared of history repeating itself which it almost guaranteed to happen at Agora, Nucleus, Middle Earth and all those other me too central escrow markets. I for one won't be going down that path again.
There are two things keeping us in this rutt. First, when events like Evo happen, most of the money is lost by vendors. Basically it comes down to the length of time money is in escrow before the product is shipped vs the time from shipping until the order is finalized. There's too many buyers who clearly don't give a rats ass about the well being of the vendors who work so hard getting them the products they want. The long term viability of darknetmarkets depends on us looking out for each other. So buyers, when you sign up at a new maket that doesn't have multisig escrow, make a point of asking the admins why they don't have multisig. If we don't ask for it, we won't get it, plain and simple. And if you're on a market that offers multisig escrow (a dwiindling pool of markets at this point), and a vendor requires multisig escrow, don't just automatically back out of the transaction. Take the time to learn multisig. It's not hard. It really isn't. If you can use bitcoins and PGP encryption, you can handle multisig. If a vendor offers both types of escrow, try selecting multisig instead of traditional escrow. You'll get good karma for doing it and feel good all day coz you made a vendor safer and less likely to lose money on your transaction.
Vendors are always saying "multisig is no good because I offer it and buyers don't use it.". Well I think we can conclude at this point that most buyers don't care about multisig because they haven't taken the brunt of the losses when markets have failed. So vendors, for a change try changing your settings to only allow multisig. There are vendors who have done that. They haven't gone out of business. You may have to be ready to help a few people through the process the first time. But that will be a customer who will come back. If you're a decent vendor, people won't choose another vendor because you require multisig. One idea that's worked for other vendors is to mention in the product listing that you're willing to help any multisig newbies to complete their first transaction. It's a great way to establish a relationship with a customer and that customer will come back.
So why are fewer and fewer markets offering multisig escrow. For one, it's more work to program for the market developers. If vendors and buyers don't ask for multisig, markets won't provide it. There have been a few markets that did piss poor implmentations of multisig that were hard to use and didn't provide protection that is the whole point of multisig escrow. Panacea is the poster child for that problem. Because of technical incompetence on the part of the developer, some customers ended up with their funds locked up in multisig escrow accounts. That should never happen in a properly designed multisig system. It's the nature of darknetmarkets that you don't know anything about the character or intentions of market admins. You can't check their references because you don't know who they are. Who IRL would hand their wallet to a guy theyve never met who says let me hold your wallet for you? The question is nuts isn't it? well that's exactly what you're doing when you use traditional escrow and a market controlled wallet. The law of gravity isn't going to change tomorrow. So it's time to use our brains and figure out a better way of doing things.
I read in one of the exit scam threads the other day that more than half of users did not use PGP to encrypt addresses. What does this tell you about the user population? Basically, these people care so little about their security they will blatantly associate their name and address with a package full of contraband. Yes, their brains are certainly drug addled. I'm pretty sure since the DNM has become popular in media recently many just saw EVO as an amazon for drugs.
Now as George Carlin said, "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." If the average DNM user isn't even using PGP to decrease the risk of LE involvement, then what are the chances people will want to shift to a more complicated escrow system?
Btw, I am all for multi-sig but just thought I'd throw that out there...