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Evolution (marketplace)

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Evolution
Type of site
Darknet market
Available inEnglish
OwnerVerto
URLk5zq47j6wd3wdvjq.onion (defunct)[1][2]
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedJanuary 2014
Current statusOffline
An analysis of the defunct Evolution marketplace shows the different types of products and vendors on a market[3]

Evolution was a darknet market operating on the Tor network. The site was founded by an individual known as 'Verto' who also founded the now defunct Tor Carding Forum.[4]

Launched January 14, 2014, it saw rapid growth within its first several months, helped in part by law enforcement seizures of some of its competitors during the six-month-long investigation codenamed Operation Onymous.[5] Speaking about why Evolution was not part of Operation Onymous, head of European police cybercrimes division said it was "because there's only so much we can do on one day."[6] Wired estimated that as of November 2014 it was one of the two largest drug markets.[7][8]

Evolution was similar to other darknet markets in its prohibitions, disallowing "child pornography, services related to murder/assassination/terrorism, prostitution, ponzi schemes, and lotteries".[8] Where it most prominently differed was in its more lax rules concerning stolen credit cards and others kinds of fraud, permitting, for example, the wholesaling of credit card data.[8][9]

In mid-March 2015, administrators froze its users escrow accounts, disallowing withdrawals, citing technical difficulties.[10] Evolution had earned a reputation not just for its security, but also for its professionalism and reliability, with an uptime rate much higher than its competition.[11][10] Partly for that reason, when the site went offline a few days later, on March 18, the user community panicked.[10] The shut down was discovered to be an exit scam, with the operators of the site shutting down abruptly in order to steal the approximately $12 million in bitcoins it was holding as escrow.[12][13]

References

  1. ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/EvolutionMarket
  2. ^ https://www.gwern.net/DNM%20survival
  3. ^ Compton, Ryan. "Darknet Market Basket Analysis". ryancompton.net. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  4. ^ Wired Staff (1 January 2015). "The Most Dangerous People on the Internet Right Now". Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  5. ^ James Cook (7 November 2014). "More Details Emerge Of How Police Shut Down Over 400 Deep Web Marketplaces As Part Of 'Operation Onymous'". UK Business Insider. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  6. ^ "Raids on underground 'Darknet' websites". DW. 7 November 2014.
  7. ^ Greenberg, Andy (6 November 2014). "Not Just Silk Road 2: Feds Seize Two Other Drug Markets and Counting". Wired.
  8. ^ a b c Greenberg, Andy (18 September 2014). "The Dark Web Gets Darker With Rise of the 'Evolution' Drug Market". Wired. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  9. ^ McCluskey, Brent (23 September 2014). "Evolution Replaces Silk Road as New Online Drug Market". The Fix.
  10. ^ a b c Greenberg, Andy (18 March 2015). "The Dark Web's Top Drug Market, Evolution, Just Vanished". Wired.
  11. ^ Glance, David. "Despite Darknet drug market arrests and seizures, can they be stopped?". The Conversation.
  12. ^ Krebs, Brian (2015-03-18). "Dark Web's 'Evolution Market' Vanishes". Krebs on Security. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
  13. ^ Woolf, Nicky (2015-03-18). "Bitcoin 'exit scam': deep-web market operators disappear with $12m". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
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