The new king of the online drug market has mysteriously vanished

It’s been well over a year since the world’s most popular online black market, Silk Road, was taken down by law enforcement and, in its absence, several websites have been trying to claim its throne. A website by the name of Evolution looked to be the winner and was the de facto king of the dark web drug trade nut now even that website has been taken down, although nobody knows why and there’s no indication that law enforcement was involved. 

In the 18 months since the Silk Road online black market for narcotics was taken down by a swarm of three-letter agencies, a site known as Evolution has taken its place at the top of the dark web drug trade. Now Evolution, too, has suddenly dropped off the face of the internet. But unlike its Silk Road predecessor, there’s no indication that law enforcement took down the newer black market. Instead, it’s simply, mysteriously vanished—with rumors swirling that its own administrators may have run off with many millions of dollars of its users’ drug money. Over the past weekend, the massive anonymous market known as Evolution halted withdrawals of bitcoin from its website, telling users that it was dealing with technical difficulties. Then on Tuesday evening, both its market and user forum went offline, with no opportunity for drug buyers and sellers to pull out the funds they had stored in their Evolution accounts. The result has been a wave of panic that’s shaken the online black market economy as much as any of the law enforcement drug busts of the last two years.