Major BTC darknet market vanishes in potential scam

Abacus Market, once the biggest Bitcoin‑friendly dark web shop for Western buyers, vanished from the internet in July. TRM Labs says the site’s operators probably closed the doors and ran off with customers’ funds in a classic exit scam. Some experts still think police may have secretly seized the servers, but no agency has claimed credit for the closure yet. Nevertheless, the timing is quite interesting, as Abacus went dark only three weeks after officers shut down Archetyp Market on 16 June 2025. Signs of trouble had already starting appearing in June Users complained they could not withdraw funds last month. The site’s administrator, who uses the name “Vito,” posted on the Dread forum and blamed the delays on a flood of new users from the closed Archetyp site and DDOS attacks. Abacus Market’s admin posted on the Dead forum. Source: TRM Labs. The community, however, doubted the claims and daily bitcoin deposits tell a different story. From 1 to 27 June, Abacus took in about US$230,000 a day over 1400 transactions. From 28 June to 10 July, the average amount of deposits plunged to US$13,000 over 100 deposits. This shows that users were growing increasingly suspicious of the site. Abacus launched in September 2021 under the name Alphabet Market and re‑branded two months later. Though it was open for users worldwide, it worked hard to attract Australian buyers, even hiring a local moderator and sprinkling Australian slang through its site text. The marketplace’s catalog covered stimulants, opioids, psychedelics, prescription pills, benzodiazepines, unlicensed medicines and cannabis products. The marketplace let customers pay in Bitcoin or Monero, unlike rivals DrugHub, ASAP Market and Incognito Market. An old screenshot of the Abacus Market. Source: TRM Labs. The strategy paid off. In 2022 Abacus held 10 percent of Bitcoin sales among Western darknet markets, rising to 17 percent in 2023. After ASAP Market’s closure in July 2023 and the seizure of Incognito Market in March 2024, Abacus’s share in the market shot above 70 percent in 2024. June 2025 was Abacus’s best month ever, with sales hitting US$6.3 million. No evidence of law enforcement seizure yet ‘Hugbunter,’ an administrator at the dark web forum called Dread, had been in contact with the team behind Abacus for a long time. Hugbunter says he has seen no proof of law enforcement activity yet. However, in previous cases like the Nemesis Market closure, official law enforcement seizure notifications only surfaced months later. So, it is still possible that Abacus was closed by the LEOs. Whatever the cause, users quickly move on. When ASAP Market closed in 2023, Abacus traffic jumped 20 percent the next month. After Archetyp fell in June 2025, thousands of its members shifted to Abacus overnight, helping push that record US$6.3 million sales figure. Becoming the top Western darknet market may have sealed Abacus’s fate. Large volume, a big user base and strong name recognition bring law‑enforcement attention. Abacus’s administrators may have chosen safety over further profit considering the fact Archetyp market’s team had already faced arrests and legal action. After roughly four years online and hundreds of millions in earnings, the team may have decided it was time to disappear, TRM Labs notes. The dark web marketplace activity hardly ever pauses. After the 2022 removal of Hydra Market, new Russian sites appeared and by 2024 captured more than 97 percent of global revenue in dark web drug sales. In the West, many fresh dark web markets are lightweight projects; examples include 3DogsMarket, Drugula Market, and Squid Market, built from templates with weak security and designed to make quick cash before vanishing. Abacus could very well be another such example. Cryptopolitan Academy: Tired of market swings? Learn how DeFi can help you build steady passive income. Register Now

Source: Cryptopolitan