New message from Agora: "Payments will be restored before May 5 10:00 AM GMT. We have been working on the problem during all this time and unfortunately this is the earliest time it is technically possible to restore them."
[14 Points] Vendor_BBMC:
[7 Points] GreekLobsta:
Okay I'm not overly educated or intelligent in terms of these issues like the DNMs and so forth, but wouldn't telling everyone an exact time when their money will be there be a good excuse for Agora to "go down due to large amounts of traffic" just like after Evo went down and everyone went to their market? And then they just don't come back at all?
Not trying to foretell doom but it seems really convenient to me. As I said, not very educated on this subject just wildly speculating due to my pessimistic nature.
[5 Points] jhbjksafjk:
I wonder how they will blame this on them trying to be more secure.
[3 Points] ofc_imover18:
Agora support did already refund a withdrawl of mine that "went missing." I'm scared to try the withdrawl again.
[3 Points] None:
Okay so say I sent 2btc to my wallet today, would it be safe to assume it won't get there? I went Coinbase to bitmixer to wallet.
Inb4 lost forever. I just assumed payments don't work but wallets are fine.
[1 Points] Andreezy23:
Are the deposits working?!?!
[-4 Points] Vendor_BBMC:
Sheepmarketplace made up a cock & bull story about problems with the implementation of a new tumbler.
Unfortunately for Agora's owner, this is the REAL reason. That's why he's scared to tell us.
Restarting a jammed tumbler and re-coupling it to agora takes 24 hours to get all the stuck bitcoin out of those cogs and wheels.
Its a good job that Agora's owner isn't currently trying to rob us, otherwise we would be fucked. He's just running a marketplace site that has had 18 months of bolt-ons and updates, had its tumbler ripped out and erected in the car park, a load-balancer, and more servers.
He needs to completely re-code it AND TEST IT, OFFLINE, then port the database over one Sunday to the replacement.
[-9 Points] jtronicustard:
That's nice. Meanwhile on BB...
I remember on SheepMarketplace, when it didn't have enough bitcoin to pay everyone.
The wallets used to go wrong on Friday (when everybody would release the escrow for their weekend drug order, and vendors would try to take their earnings offsite), tghen withdrawals would be "fixed" on Tuesday, when customers deposit money and order the weekend's drugs.
I've been waiting since FRIDAY 1st May for a 4 btc withdrawal to actually be broadcast to the network. It looks like I'm not going to get it until TUESDAY now, for technical reasons.
Agora is a site with a lot of downtime, averaging a day and a half every week. But that is nothing compared to their wallets.
THE NUMBER ONE CONCERN OF VENDORS IS UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO OUR OWN TAKINGS
I hate to say it, but Agora's "wallets" are the least-reliable of ANY marketplace in darknet history. The site is well-thought-out, and great when it works. But it forces us to use its bitcoin walletrs, and manually withdraw funds in an unnecessary extra step after the satisfied customer releases the escrow.
I DON'T SEE HOW AGORA'S BITCOIN HANDLING CAN BE SEEN AS ANYTHING BUT A TOTAL DISASTER.
Its very ambitious, but it completely ignores the main concern of vendors. Agora's owner is free to jump in and defend it at any time, but I've got a feeling that the many millions of commission he's made is kept OFFSITE in a proper bitcoin wallet, and not in the cardboard cutout saloon bar frontage excuse for wallets which he forces US to use.
WHEN they work. In fact I KNOW he doesn't keep his money anywhere near the bitcoin environment he uses to "look after" our takings for us.
I spoke to Agora's owner a few times in the early days. Its hard to square that person with the jaded numbskull currently running Agora. This is the worst example of arrogant darknet hubris I have ever witnessed.
Not only will there be no compensation, he will continue to charge ME for all the money he keeps borrowing before the weekend.
Agora, if you can't code a wallet that works 100% of the time, keep my 4 BTC and fuck off. In the medium term, you will be doing us all a favour.
Agora assumes that security is more important than any other consideration, but that is a stratospheric mistake. I didn't say "the number two concern of vendors is unrestricted access to our own takings, after security", did I?
Agora needs to start listening right now, rather than plough on with this casserole of nonsense "bitcoinless site" idea. We've already seen that if SheepRoadReloaded2 can find where a site stashes its profits, so can the FBI.