Circumstantial Evidence of Agora Marketplace Exit Scam

Hi all,

Hope you are staying safe out there. Thought I should put a few things out there for discussion in a new context: what do you all think of the idea that it looks like Agora is currently pulling an exit scam? I know it's a large and previously trusted marketplace that seemed to run a tight ship, but let's look at the following things:

It is also worth noting that the reason so many people trust Agora is that it was initially promoted by BitcoinFog. If Agora continues to experience issues with no explanation, I would be leery of the intentions of the BitcoinFog people making such an endorsement (and in the first place their endorsement of a drug marketplace makes them a generally unsuitable financial tumbler, which in theory masks your money with legitimate money).

DO NOT DEPOSIT COINS INTO AGORA UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED AND EVERYONE ON HERE IS REPAID IN FULL.

There is nothing conclusive here, but we need to be on guard all the time and I think the sooner we bring out and flesh out this possibility and force the Agora staff to respond the less damage is possible.

Edit: I added some new info in the comments below, including potentially suspicious wording of Agora's last reddit announcement. On the other hand, one piece of evidence that seems to point in the opposite direction is the disabling of new registration (still currently going on). This may point to some internal conflict.


Comments


[15 Points] Plagas15:

Why the fuck does someone new make a post every hour repeating the same info. There is not one single piece of original information in this article and all you are trying to do is incite more panic by the community. If this is an exit scam why do people still have all the money they had in their wallets before the deposit/withdrawal shit happened? Why is blockchain still showing peoples transactions heading to their wallet? Why is one of the alleged agora market wallets still full of BTCs and not emptied out already if this was a scam? Why warn people ON THE ACTUAL FUCKING WEBSITE, that they are having withdrawal/deposit issues so they don't try and move more money to the site (and you mentioned sheep, but 0 people have proved they can withdraw yet so it is not the same as of now) ?

See, I can make valid points too as to why it is not a scam. Now I am not saying that something isn't going on, because It very well could be. But unless you have any new information on the subject, stop repeating what everyone has already said and be patient like the rest of us.


[8 Points] twigburst:

No one wanted to believe sheep was pulling an exit scam either, people just kept thinking positive until the site went offline. Not saying it is, but I sure as shit wouldn't use the site until it gets fixed.


[5 Points] slious:

when you said 'new context' - did you really mean 4 day old shit? cause you gave us 4 day old shit....


[4 Points] kk8447fhf7:

Sheep didnt make any attempt to warn people of the problems, agora is, a big banner across the website is a good faith effort to prevent people from depositing. This is not malicious, however the idea that paying for an anonmous host will protect them in the event Tor is broken may save their ass but not the ass of their wallet server, so it may be possible that LEA has taken control of one or more of their wallet servers containing a portion of their assets and this is causing the problems, this would explain why the forum and wallet issues arrived at the same time.

Not malicious, possibly hacked

also keep in mind everytime you opt not to use mulitisig on a multisig enabled market you are reinforcing these problems, *you are part of the problem** *


[3 Points] guest20253:

I've realised that this sub always needs to complain about something - that's just the nature of it. I guess it's Agora's turn now.

If Agora admins wanted to do an exit scam, you all would be already having no access to the site or your wallets. I'm pretty sure they just having some troubles with depositing BTC and they fixing it. That's why they not responding to probably thousands of PMs asking 'where's my 0.2 BTC??'.

It's like when someone makes an international order and after a week complains that they got scammed. This is not eBay we're talking about. It's the biggest (if not, one of the biggest) drug marketplaces with high level of security. Things don't happen that fast as you think. Be patient and stop posting this bullshit because it makes uneducated people panic and spread this bs even more.


[4 Points] Thebrownhobbit:

My popcorn is ready and I'm ready for this crazy ride .


[3 Points] Yellow-King-yo:

Are you not entertained?!


[3 Points] queryox1:

There is not a single piece of "circumstantial" evidence in your whole thread.

First of all you should know Agora admins are not loud mouthed kids, they do not post on the forums really what so ever, nor post publicy and when they do it is extremley rare.

In the past they have gone offline for over 2 days straight then come back online again without a single word, they answer to themselves first not the users which may come to a surprise to all the SR refugees who are used to their daily dose of anarchically spouted bullshit and false promises.

In this OVERLOAD of messages, do you think they have the time to reply to every PGP encrypted message which they know is going to be about the payment issue? The staff are very renown for being unresponsive to users, this is not "evidence" at all.

The forum has been basically on and offline for the past 2 weeks or so, or has been extremely slow whilst the site has been running fine. If this was an exit scam DEPOSITS would be fixed, registration would be open and there would be some excuses along the line to keep people depositing and trying to purchase. Not the complete opposite.


[2 Points] Yellow-King-yo:

For the love of HAYSUS can I just please get some fucking MXE?! What is so hard about this?


[2 Points] jdael:

honestly, I think that agora would pull a much neater exit scam. My bet is that someone is attacking their servers (possibly le?)


[2 Points] Jaymacmac:

Agora wouldn't have the time to reply to every message from buyers who have money in escrow or account or some other query, never mind having to go through pgp, think about it. If they were exit scamming they would be gone by now.


[2 Points] a2ndwind:

I understand the fears of exit scams after sheep and BM. I too lost money in both (not much I think I only had .04BTC in sheep) but still Agora admin could have made off numerous times and they didn't. Even when sr2 and others were being seized they could have slipped away blaming the feds and didn't. I seriously doubt they are sitting back trying to fool and trap everyone in an attempt to make the biggest exit scam the DNM has ever seen. Because of this I am starting a new campaign "Faith in Agora over Paranoia"


[1 Points] None:

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[1 Points] None:

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[1 Points] xxfightersback:

I have received first of 6 missing transactions!

No exit Scam I think!!


[1 Points] None:

agora takes funds agora sells all funds price rises ????


[1 Points] JerrySpringer69:

I withdrew <1BTC from my Agora wallet today...It took a little over an hour for it to show up in my personal wallet


[1 Points] johnlawless54:

Yeah, this is just like that same exit scam they pulled a couple weeks ago when payments weren't working...oh wait


[1 Points] rastamonstahh:

This is silly speculation.


[0 Points] its_not_me_promise:

The Irony here is if this were Evo there would be no benefit of the doubt given. It would be "the sky is falling" from the jump. We don't know what is going on, but we know SOMETHING is going on. I get not panicking, but don't be in denial either. Agoras issues have continued for several days with no end in sight. Vendors have to be contemplating retirement with yet another loss (does not matter to hack or le). Buyers have their money tied up in this mess unable to access it. If LE is not involved they are still LTAO due to this clusterfuck. Evo is the big market standing. We already know TOR can't support a market being too big (backopy tried to tell you). Hopefully Agora fixes it issues, I would love everyone to be made whole again. I am just not feeling as confident in that outcome on Monday as I was on Saturday.


[0 Points] seriouslynowwtf:

Additionally, think about how many more million $ worth of BTC got put into escrow this last week or two by noobs attracted by the media attention, dumb gangsters, and non techie drug users who didn't finalise when the drugs arrived because they never had to on the SilkRoad2!


[0 Points] None:

on the daily


[-2 Points] None:

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