UPDATE: Dream Market has been shut down. As alternative markets with similar product choice we recommend using Whitehouse Market, Vice City Market or DarkFox Market.
What is Dream Market?
Dream Market is one of the oldest and largest darknet sites on the Internet. It was founded in 2013 and has been a highly regarded name in the darknet trading circles since then. After the shutdown of Alphabay and Hansa Market in 2017, Dream Market gained a lot of new customers making it temporarily the biggest market site on the darknet. If the market site is up, you can find the onion link for Dream Market to the right of this article.
Dream offers a wide range of different products and like most other trading platforms on the darknet, drugs are one of the major categories. But you can also find stolen data and counterfeit consumer goods. It operates under strict security guidelines, and have been successful at keeping the administrator’s identity secret, even from market staff members.
What you need
Dream Market does not differ too much from any other popular darknet market site. The site uses various categories to separate different items. Like most other sites, Dream Market provides an escrow service that will withhold funds from a sale until the product has been marked as delivered by the buyer. That lowers the risk for both buyer and seller tremendously: Vendors benefit from the escrow system because they are motivated to become a trusted seller in which case they can circumvent the escrow system. But this option is only available for the most trusted sellers, having at least 250 sales with no negative feedback. Once a vendor has the trusted seal, you can buy products from him much faster than using the escrow system while still being able to trust the trade.
To register on the site all you need is to provide an account name and then you can fund your crypto wallet with Bitcoin or Litecoin (Monero is also supported) to get started. There is no market collateral so you keep all your funds to yourself and use them for purchasing goods.
Before engaging in extended buying and selling be aware of the limitations of darknet sites: This is not amazon, do not expect fast deliveries – be patient. If you believe you are getting scammed, always try to get in touch with the seller or buyer first before opening a dispute – often times there is a simple reason for a delay or it is possible that the buyer or seller was not reachable for a couple of days. Making sure to only use the dispute system when there are no other options left also guarantees that the support staff does not need to waste time with issues that could have been easily resolved by communication between the buyer and seller.
Security Recommendations
Same as with all darknet sites the usual security recommendations apply. Most importantly: stay anonymous. Use the TOR browser only and don’t use the TOR browser for any regular (non-darknet) browsing.
Before visiting the site with the TOR browser, you should switch off JavaScript (Options -> Privacy & Security -> Security Level -> Switch to “Safest”). Cannazon is explicitly designed so that you don’t need JavaScript which allows you to increase your security by switching it off.
Ideally, you have a dedicated system or at least a dedicated VM for all your darknet activities. Keep your darknet PGP keys and other credentials limited to that system only, do not mix it with any activities that would expose your identity.
Treat your dedicated system like a work-system: Only install the software necessary for your operations do not install anything for entertainment or other purposes. Subsequently, resist the urge to browse Twitter, Reddit or any other social media sites while you have downtime. For this always use your regular system.
For additional system security, we recommend you run a secure operating system like Tails or Whonix on your dedicated system for darknet activities. We also recommend using a VPN as an additional security measure since TOR will only anonymize your browsing sessions but not other traffic.
Especially when using any public WiFi hotspots you should always use a VPN when accessing the Internet since you don’t know whether the access point is compromised. A VPN ensures that all of your traffic, no matter what application, will always be strongly encrypted when passing the access point, this protecting yourself not only from eavesdropping but also possible identity theft.
Dream Market Summary
As one of the oldest and largest darknet market sites, Dream Market is always worth a visit. You may be able to find products here that you can find nowhere else and the prices are rather low compared to some other sites. Also, if you are not only looking for drugs but other items typically sold via the darknet, Dream Market with its huge portfolio is always a site to check. As always, when visiting any darknet market make sure to only use trusted links, such as the onion link for Dream Market on the top right.