After accidentally leaking their IP address and subsequently being DDOS'd off the face of the planet it seems that the #1 dark net market "Empire" has closed its door, taking with it around 10,000 BTC in their escrow wallet. While entirely speculation on my part it seems that the admins have no intention of bringing the site back online, so for all intents purposes the Empire market like many dark net markets before it has gone the way of the dodo, becoming extinct.

In regards to law enforcement being involved in the closure of Empire it doesn't seem likely. As far as I know from piecing information together they had been experiencing issues with being DDOS'd far before they leaked their IP address but shortly after that mistake had an incredible uptick in the DDOS ferocity grinding the site down to a slow halt. As of 2 days ago their .onion address no longer registered as even being a site on the TOR network.

The natural progression of dark net markets seems to lean heavily towards exit scamming as the stress of running a service that is heavily hunted by law enforcement mounts. We know for a fact they were being DDOS'd prior to the site going offline completely however it is hard to say if this is the reason they went offline completely in an attempt to move their service to a new server.. Or if they simply decided to walk away with all the escrow money essentially becoming instant multi-millionaires.

A message was signed with the Empire market PGP key a few days after they went down however in the case that law enforcement got their hands on the server they would have also got their hands on the PGP key so I can't say for sure that LE isn't involved. My condolences go out to the users and vendors who had ordered just as the site was brought down or had money stuck in escrow.

While the majority of the business going on within Empire was illicit drug sales and other shady shit I still don't believe that those involved deserved to lose their funds in this manner. Please be leery of new markets springing up pretending to be Empire. I'll keep everyone updated on the news as it comes down through the grapevine. Hope everyone stays safe, thanks for reading this post!

Fellow Canucks, if you're looking for a replacement for empire there is a darknet market geared towards Canadians that goes by "The Canadian HeadQuarters" and I've included .onion link:

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