Popular Dark Web marketplace plans to stop operations after next month

• Dream Market is known for selling drugs, stolen data, and consumer goods on the Dark Web.
• This comes after law enforcement agencies initiated crackdowns on Dark Web drug trafficking.

Dream Market, which has been operational on the Dark Web since 2013, will soon close its doors in the coming days. It has said that it will be shutting down on April 30. This comes after top law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, DEA, and Europol have announced their plans to bring down online drug trafficking predominantly happening in the Dark Web.

Worth noting

• In a message displayed on its homepage, Dream Market also disclosed that the operations would be taken over by a ‘partner company’.
• The onion address of the so-called partner entity in the message has been reported to be inactive.
• Many users believe the new site to be a trap set by government officials or law enforcement agencies.
• Dream Market would be the latest Dark Web site to shut down voluntarily before being taken down. In another message, it cited continuous DDoS attacks as a reason for closure.
• The six-year-old site was in the news earlier this month for having millions of user records put by the infamous Gnosticplayers.

No exit scam suspected

It is believed that Dream Market might not have an ulterior motive linked to the cryptocurrency exit scams.

“Exit scams are a common occurrence in the digital underworld. Multisignature wallets have improved the ability to secure funds, but ultimately these require significantly more work on the part of the marketplaces. Dream had the typical deposit and withdraw model, as does the other popular market at the current time, Wall Street Market,” CCN reported.

A worrisome issue in the dark

Drugs sold through the Dark Web have been a growing menace in the past few years and has pushed law enforcement agencies to be more vigilant than ever.

Dream Market going down means one thing: a significant drop in online drug-selling activities. However, other sites such as Wall Street Market and Cannazon, might pick up as a result.