How Dropgangs and Dead Drops Are Transforming Darknet Practices

Since the creation of the Silk Road, authorities have waged a war against the online drug trade with a wave of surveillance and enforcement. However, crypto-anarchists are developing new ways to evade the state’s tentacles as the next technological phase started to emerge in late 2017. On Monday, the Cypherpunk Bitstream podcast discussed the evolution of darknet markets as new ideas like dropgangs and dead drops proliferate into the next decade.

Also read: Why the Counter Economy Is Necessary to Bitcoin’s Survival as a Disruptive Currency

The Importance of Evolving Darknet Practices

At the end of 2019, the publication Vice highlighted the fact that since 2014 the number of users buying illicit narcotics on darknet markets (DNM) has doubled. Vice columnist David Hillier’s report underlines the fact that DNMs have increased since the Silk Road, but the growth of ‘Snapchat dealers’ and other instant messenger service drug operations has…