Is it a gorilla, is it a chimpanzee? No it's M00nkey Market. It's not the 'key' to the moon, but rather a monkey on the moon instead. Not to be confused with Monkey Market, given the presence of the 00s. Anyway, back to the review. M00nkey Market came onto the darknet scene in the spring of 2023, featuring a bright and catchy branding designed to grab your attention. But what lies behind the bright and colorful display? Does M00nkey Market have a bright and bold future, and does it meet the standards of a modern market? We'll tell you!
Disclaimer: Torhoo takes zero responsibility should you choose to use M00nkey Market for any form of transaction. All information provided by Torhoo is for educational and research purposes only and is not intended to promote any activity that may be illegal in your country.
After signing in, you will be met by a rather colorful home page. Hope you like purple! Of course you do, you're on Torhoo! We love purple here! The layout will be pleasantly familiar to darknet veterans, whilst being relatively intuitive to newbies. There's no doubt that the layout bears resemblence to the original AlphaBay, and various other popular markets that followed such as Empire Market, or active markets such as WeTheNorth which have adopted a very similar layout. But one could argue, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
That's not to say that M00nkey Market doesn't go a lot further than these past and present markets however, with an expanded array of features designed to enhance the user experience and provide superior security (such as the encrypted messaging system which we'll cover later).
There's a no nonsense approach when it comes to dealing with disputes: Decisions regarding disputes are final, non-negotiable, and cannot be challenged. Our platform operates as a dictatorship that seeks to do what is best for the collective good. Therefore, please accept our decisions or seek services elsewhere.
Strict (but fair in our view) rules exist for vendors also such as mandatory PGP 2FA (a must on any modern market), no off-market trading (to protect buyers from scams over Wickr, Telegram, Session etc.) and no duplication of listings (to help keep the market tidy and improve the buyer experience). Nothing objectionable here in our view.
By default most vendors will be required to use escrow, meaning funds are held by the market for a period of 4 days for digital listings and 14 days for physical listings. However, vendors with 500+ sales on other reputable markets, alongside excellent feedback, are eligible for Finalize Early (FE) status. FE vendors will receive payment immediately, so be aware of this when making a purchase. Buyers have the option to extend escrow by 7 days as needed (for escrow listings only of course), to reduce the need for disputes and allow more time to communicate with vendors in the event of an issue such as a delivery delay. Established vendors who can prove their history can join the platform for free, and early adopters of the market can join for a vendor bond of just $100 (this will increase as the market grows in size).
Results are displayed in grid format which contains all the key information about a product such as a thumbnail image. Within each grid you'll find a brief product description, fiat price (in any of the 5 local currencies which you can select in your account settings) price in cryptocurrency, shipping locations, whether the item is Escrow or FE, and of course the name of the vendor. This generous amount of information makes searching through large numbers of products a breeze.
Want to learn more about a specific vendor before deciding whether to purchase a product from them? All you need to do is click on their name at top right of the listing, then from this page you can view feedback from across their entire product range. For some established vendors, feedback has been imported from other established markets such as ASAP. This is clearly labelled as 'Imported Feedback' so there's absolute transparency in this regard. This is a refreshing change of approach from some other shady markets that have attempted to make their market look larger than it is using this practice. Vendors can also be added to favorites which can be accessed under the 'Account' tab in the header, which is a real time saver if you want to find them again without having to carry out a full search.
Before depositing any cryptocurrency to the market wallet, we strongly advise you to double check that you're not on a phishing site. Compare your onion link against those listed on Torhoo or one of M00nkey Market's official partners such as Tor.Fish. Note that links obtained from the rotating mirror site will vary constantly, with new mirrors being generated every 45 minutes (just make sure it came from M00nkey Market's official clearnet rotation site, as listed at the top of this review). Once you've done your due dilligence, send funds to the wallet address provided in the wallet section of your account. You'll soon see a notification that a deposit is incoming (note this can take a little while to display). Once the deposit has sufficient confirmations and is credited to your account, you can proceed with a purchase. Select the item you want from the product page, choose the cryptocurrency you wish to pay in, shipping option and quantity, then click 'Checkout'.
Once you're at the checkout screen, you will need to provide your address, alongside any other notes. These will be auto-encrypted by the market, but we strongly recommend that you always encrypt messages yourself, since auto-encrypt functions have left buyers vulnerable in the past. Reliance on auto-encryption caused many buyers to be de-anonymised during the takeover of Hansa Market by law enforcement. By encrypting messages yourself, you're guaranteeing that they can only be read by the intended recipient. If you're not yet familar with PGP encryption, we have a detailed guide on how to use PGP.
Once your order has been submitted to the vendor, it will appear in your 'orders' menu. Once the vendor accepts, ships or cancels the order, you will receive a notification and the status will be updated here. M00nkey Market's escrow times are 14 days for physical listings or 4 days for digital listings, unless the vendor has FE status, in which case payment is made as soon the vendor accepts the order. Only buy FE listings from vendors you trust. Once your order has arrived, you can then mark it as received and leave feedback for the seller. In the event of an issue, you have the option to extend the escrow window once by 7 days, or if your order still hasn't arrived once the remaining time has almost elapsed, you can raise a dispute which will then be reviewed by market moderators. We always recommend messaging a vendor before disputing any order. Reputable vendors will always try their best to resolve the situation with you in the first instance to avoid the need of going through the dispute process.
We still strongly advise encrypting messages yourself if sending any sensitive information as this will provide a guaranteed level of protection, but given that many users still don't properly utilise PGP encryption (either due to lack of technical ability or through laziness), anything that provides added security for users has to be a welcome feature. We therefore commend M00nkey Market for making the effort to implement this.
