Welcome to Silk Road Market.

2022. Every little detail about the market, every doubt and every flaw will be discussed thoroughly throughout this piece.

Being a darkweb enthusiast, I’ve seen over 40 dark web markets up close. That has taught me what to look for and what to avoid when inspecting these markets.

Table of contents:

Is Silk Road market anonymous?
How is the UI on Silk Road market?
What products does Silk Road sell?
Who sells on Silk Road market?
Which Cryptocurrencies does Silk Road accept?
What are the available wallet modes on Silk Road?
Is Silk Road secure?
Does Silk Road have an escrow?
Does Silk Road let me swap my coins for other crypto?

I do advise you read the fine-print, a lot of other questions not mentioned above will be answered. Let’s begin then?

Disclaimer

This Silk Road review/guide/website is solely and exclusively for educational and research purposes. We do not support or encourage buying/selling on the dark web. The items you buy/sell may be illegal, or completely fake. We haven’t verified the legitimacy, legality or authenticity of the products being bought or sold.

As a result, any and all your actions are completely your own responsibility. It’s your responsibility to verify that all your acts remain 100% legal at all times. The creators of this website will in no way be held responsible for any of your actions or losses.

How to safely access Silk Road market?

Accessing Silk Road simply with Tor browser isn’t secure. There are a series of steps and tools you must employee to guarantee 100% anonymity and security.

Go through this step-by-step guide on how to access Silk Road market safely.

If you’re in a hurry (or just lazy), make sure you at least download NordVPN before accessing the market. For the “why”, go through the guide mentioned above. If you don’t have Nordvpnvthen you can choose from below given offers.

Silk Road Market

Before we start, here’s a sneak-peek of what the market offers:

URL: http://silkroadm5oqzuz3yq7pvwvinvyzeg2wnpnw3t4cyrsggrcgqfy2ptid.onion
Wallet-mode: On-market wallet + Direct payments (wallet-less)
Total products: 26,000+
Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin & Monero
Withdrawal fee: Manually selected
Exchange fee: 2%
Vendor signup fee: $500
Vendor commission: 5%/sale
Security: 2-FA/ PIN/ personal phrase/ mnemonic code
Escrow: Standard + Multisig

Is Silk Road market anonymous?

It wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t. Registration on Silk Road doesn’t demand anything that’s personally identifiable. Here’s the registration form:

In fact, it’s the only market I’ve ever seen which uses “two usernames”.

The first is a “display name”. This is displayed to other users/vendors on the market. This “IS NOT” your username.

Your username is hidden and set separately during registration. It prevents others from gaining access to your username making unauthorized access harder.

Here’s how to sign up on Silk Road (free).

How is the UI on Silk Road market?

It’s one of the simplest darknet markets around.

It’s also traditional. Meaning, the interface is exactly what almost all other markets in the industry offer.

You get the top-bar, which I also like to call the menu bar/navigation bar. That’s simply because this holds links which let you navigate the market.

Then the market shows you the product categories on the left. Buyers can easily narrow the exact product-type they’re looking for. On the right, it shows a number of featured products buyers may be interested in.

The left-sidebar also shows a list of the “Top sellers” if you’d like to check their inventory directly.

What Products does Silk Road Sell?

When reviewing dark web markets, I tend to look at the product-stock in terms of quantity as well as the variety (diversity).

Talking of quantity, Silk Road has over 26,000+ individual listings. Being a dark web market, this is an impressive number if and when compared to its contemporaries. As for diversity, Silk Road facilitates the buying and selling of everything you may expect from a dark web market.

The list includes, but isn’t limited to:

Drugs
Fake documents
Cards
Login data for banks/other accounts
Gold and other jewellery
Counterfeit clothing, electronics and others
Software and a lot more.

And, these were simply the “primary” categories on the market. The diversity of products within these categories is even more impressive.

E.g. if I look at the “Digital Products”, it has products as seemingly harmless as “Guides and Tutorials” to as dangerous and confidential as “accounts”.

Similarly, in the “Drugs” category, it has a massive list of products such as Ecstasy, Cannabis, Stimulants, Opioids and others.

Even in the “Software” category you’d find innocent software such as VPNs and Socks but also predators such as Botnets and exploits.

Point being, the market not just offers you many products, but many different types of products.

Who sells on Silk Road market?

Silk Road is not a single-vendor market, rather, it’s a P2P dark web marketplace. This means, anyone can start selling on Silk Road.

There’s a $500.00 vendor-fee. This is basically a “sign up fee” that vendors need to pay. It’s demanded to primarily make it harder for scammers to sign up on the platform.

Now, comparatively, I’ve totally seen “cheaper” markets. However, that only promotes scammers. But then, I’ve also seen markets charging upwards of $1000.00 Hence, in my personal opinion, $500.00 is the perfect number for vendor fee in the market today.

Do note that vendors also must have basic PGP-knowledge. This is mandatory in order to sign up as a vendor on Silk Road.

Here’s a detailed, step-by-step guide on how to get a vendor account on Silk Road.

Which Cryptocurrencies does Silk Road accept?

This obviously is an important question. Do you want the fastest transaction? Maybe you prefer privacy more? Or is it the transaction fee you’re most concerned with? The cryptocurrency you choose obviously dictates all of these factors, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, Silk Road accepts the 2 most desirable Cryptocurrencies in the industry, namely:

Bitcoin
Monero.

Depending on your priority, you get to choose the Crypto most suitable to you.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to deposit funds to Silk Road.

What are the available Wallet Modes on Silk Road?

Silk Road is one of the very rare hybrid-wallet markets in the industry. This means, it supports both the wallet-modes available on dark web markets-

Has an on-market wallet.
Has a wallet-less (direct payment)

Most traditional dark web markets rely only on a “on-market” wallet mode. Silk Road doesn’t. And that’s a very desirable factor. Let me explain. On-market wallets mean your account will have an in-built wallet. You deposit your funds to this wallet, and then make purchases on the market using these funds.

The problem with this is, users tend to leave funds in the wallet for future payments. This creates exit-scam opportunities for markets. Although, this fund can be manually withdrawn at any given time.

To counter this and to boost trust, Silk Road also supports direct, wallet-less payments. Using this mode, users aren’t required to deposit funds to their account-wallets.

Rather, they get a deposit address on the checkout page, for each order. Buyers send funds to this address from any external wallet to make the purchases.

Is Silk Road secure?

It is. But, how do you know what I’m saying is true on this Silk Road review? You don’t, so, let’s briefly discuss the security features they offer

Login phrase
2-FA
PIN
Mnemonic code

The login phrase is basically an “anti-phishing” code. It’s set by users during sign up. When users log into their account, this code is shown on the dashboard.

When users login using a phishing (fake) URL, this login phrase isn’t shown.

2-FA is achieved using PGP. Once enabled, a PGP-decryption is required on each login. 2-FA is only mandatory for vendors.

Then there’s the “PIN”. This too is set during registration. It’s primarily required for withdrawals. Users can also configure it to be required for placing orders.

The mnemonic code as some of you may know, is primarily a “recovery code”. It lets users recover their Silk Road accounts.

However, it has a few security features as well. For starters, it’s required to enable/disable the PIN features. It’s also required to make changes to the account password.

Does Silk Road have an Escrow?

Being a P2P market, it obviously has an escrow. However, what’s impressive is its “Multisig escrow”.

It’s a more advanced, democratic escrow that very few darknet markets offer. Multi-sig means “multiple signatures”.

In simple words, this gives the control to the escrowed funds to 3 parties. These parties are the market, the seller and the buyer. Now, to release the escrow, at least two of these three parties must sign the transaction.

This is better than the standard escrow where just the market has all the control over the escrowed funds. Learn how to enable multisig escrow on Silk Road.

Does Silk Road let me swap my coins for other crypto?

Surprisingly, it does. In fact, it’s only the second market (out of probably 40+ markets) I’ve ever seen offer this feature.

It’s a simple mechanism which lets you swap BTC to XMR or XMR to BTC.

This lets buyers increase their anonymity by depositing one type of cryptocurrency and withdrawing another.

It’s not free. You can find the updated fee for this service in our Silk Road FAQ.

Silk Road market review- final verdict

Let’s conclude this Silk Road market review then?

Starting with the positives, the market offers dual wallets (very rare), a ton of security features, has a very impressive product-stock and supports both the primary Cryptocurrencies we want it to. Even its vendor policies are impressive.

As for the negatives, there honestly are none. I’m just being real here. There’s nothing that I hate. Sure, I’d like more products and maybe a few more features.

However, there are no major complaints. And hence, I’d rate it a 5/5 before I sign off.