Bitcoin darknet marketplace vanishes after $6.3M s

Bitcoin darknet marketplace vanishes after $6.3M sales – Exit scam alert?
Abacus Market’s rise, dominance, and sudden disappearance in a post-Archetyp world has been quite the ride.

Key takeaways
Abacus Market’s sudden disappearance has reminded the community about the fragility of the sphere. Whether it was an exit scam or a quiet takedown, millions in user funds are gone, and trust in the ecosystem took another major hit.

Abacus Market, the largest Bitcoin [BTC]-driven darknet marketplace in the Western world, has abruptly gone dark, bringing about suspicions of a major exit scam.
After dominating the ecosystem with over 70% market share and recording $6.3 million in monthly sales, its sudden disappearance has shocked the community.
What happened?
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs reported that both Abacus Market’s dark web and clearnet infrastructure are now inaccessible, a likely exit scam by its operators.

The shutdown came after a wave of user complaints about failed withdrawals in late June. 
Although the site’s administrator, Vito, attributed the problems to DDoS attacks and a spike in traffic, TRM Labs observed that this pattern closely resembles known exit scams.
User trust quickly eroded. Deposits plummeted from an average of $230,000 a day in mid-June to just $13,000 by the 10th of July.
The rise before the fall
The suspected scam surfaced just weeks after Abacus reached its peak. 
Following Europol’s takedown of Archetyp Market (one of the most established darknet platforms) on the 16th of June, users migrated to Abacus, making it the largest Bitcoin-enabled darknet market in the West by volume.
In June alone, Abacus recorded $6.3 million in sales, capturing over 70% of the market. 
This wasn’t its first surge: similar spikes followed the July 2023 shutdown of ASAP Market and the March 2024 seizure