The Western world’s highest-grossing dark web marketplace went offline earlier this month in a likely exit scam, according to industry experts.
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said that users of Abacus Market began reporting withdrawal issues in late June. This is a common precursor to an exit scam, which takes place when the administrator of a site shuts it down without warning – taking the funds of all users with them.
Although the administrator of the site, known as “Vitro,” blamed the issues on a DDoS attack, and an influx of users from another marketplace known as Archetyp, Abacus users remained skeptical.
It’s possible that Abacus went offline due to law enforcement activity, although there’s been no word yet from any such authorities. More likely, suggested TRM Labs, is that Vitro saw what happened to previous market leader Archetyp, and decided to cut and run before Abacus also drew the scrutiny of police and prosecutors.
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“Marketplaces that reach the top of the ecosystem, in terms of volume, user base, listings, and reputation, often become priority targets for law enforcement. Archetyp’s recent takedown followed this pattern and likely influenced Abacus’s trajectory,” said TRM Labs.
“Faced with the decision between profit seeking and self-preservation, Abacus’s admins likely chose the latter in light of Archetyp’s seizure and the surge in new users that elevated Abacus’s profile. Furthermore, after four years of operating and generating substantial profits, the admins likely lost motivation to continue and chose to exit the ecosystem to preserve their freedom and financial gains.”
According to Chainalysis, Abacus Market’s revenue grew 183% annually in 2024 thanks in part to the closure of other sites. It specialized mainly in drugs and precursor chemicals, but also sold cybercrime tools, fraud services, counterfeit goods and even infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) accounts.
Vendors in the Spotlight
According to TRM Labs, police now prefer to focus more efforts on the vendors that populate dark web marketplaces than taking down the platforms themselves.
“Arresting vendors often has a greater disruptive impact than taking down DNMs [dark net marketplaces]. When a marketplace is shut down, vendors can typically migrate to other platforms,” it said.
“But when a vendor is arrested, their activity is disrupted across every DNM they operate on. As a result, law enforcement has adopted an intelligence-led enforcement strategy incorporating DNM takedowns into longer-term investigations rather than treating them as end goals.”
