Empire Market Review – Alternative Market of Alphabay
Empire Market is one of the newest players in the industry, so it’s natural for scammers and hackers to start building and popularizing fake Empire Market URLs and start scamming people.
Hence, throughout this piece I’ll pass on to you all the official Empire Market URLs, along with a brief review of the platform and my experience on it.
Empire Market Introduction
EmpireMarket was formerly known as Omega Bay Market, but then a new market called Omega Market was launched, and the Empire Market team didn’t want to associate themselves with the later, or confuse users between the two and hence re-branded themselves as Empire Market.
The marketplace was born on 1st February, 2018 with the tagline -“In Memory of Alexandar Caze” so that clarifies quite a lot, doesn’t it? It’s a site that pays tribute to Alphabay, the former Darknet markets giant, and for this very purpose Empire Market seems almost like a clone of the same.
For the uninitiated, Alexandar was the founder of Alphabay who was arrested and died couple years back.
Anyway, it’s important to note that Empire Market didn’t try to fool people into thinking they’re the new Alphabay or any other stunt as such, they were clear about being a separate, independent, new platform.
It looks and feels exactly the same as Alphabay, with the options and buttons being exactly where they were on former platform.
That works as a plus point for users as you won’t be lost while on Empire Market, because all the basic concepts are the same and it’ll be as if you’re using Alphabay all over again.
Although obviously only the “look and interface” is an exact copy, everything else including buyers, sellers/vendors, admins, servers etc. are completely different and new.
Empire Market URL
The official Empire Market URL is empiremktxgjovhm It has been manually verified and tested by us to be the original, legit URL.
The above Empire Market Onion Link takes you to the Empire Market homepage, which also is the Login page to the marketplace, you can enter your credentials there in case you already have them, or can click on the “Register” button on the top-bar to create a new account.
Empire Market Mirror
- http://vg43c6zaobirjlm3g25v7l7qw5huxuom2b5ksdh247fz3c2uv4gsnzad.onion/
- http://i5kjii2y2jumlye6etmouksvdhech357urmj4txctrneedl4vkfjbsqd.onion/
- http://erj7kwqkdkl73ewsuq6stztehx2tehk2aidxlex3btrfnjqax3ucvgyd.onion/
If mirror is not working then you can visit http://darkfailllnkf4vf.onion/captcha/empire, It’s the legit URL which can be verified either from the below screenshot or from this official reply from Empire Market Administrators on the forum.
As the reply is pretty recent, that of 30th March 2018, it’s safe to assume there are no other official Empire market alternative URLs, and any other URLs posing as the same are scams.
Registration
The registration process at the marketplace isn’t as short as Dream Market, but it’s still simple and secure.
You need to provide a username, a password, accompanied by a login phrase and six-digit PIN.
Select your currency along with the default cryptocurrency and you’re all set. The registration process takes no more than couple minutes at best, and there are no personal details or identity documents required.
Forum
The official Empire Market Forum URL is empforumgfttfqnq. A Forum is generally a place where you get to interact with real people using the marketplace, and this holds true for every darknet market out there.
Although, with Empire Market the slight hiccup is that the forum isn’t hosted on the same parent domain, but rather a new domain altogether and hence you need to have separate login details for the marketplace and the Forum.
So, the username and password you use to login to the marketplace won’t work on the Forum and rather you need to Signup once again.
Another hiccup on the way is you can’t signup on the Forum without an E-mail ID. Now obviously you can always create and use a free, anonymous E-mail ID such as Protonmail, but even then the idea of a mandatory E-mail ID isn’t very pleasant.
Although the relief here is, you aren’t required to verify the E-mail ID you use, so even though it’s not recommended, you can use just about any random E-mail ID you want to register.
Here’s a glimpse of what the Forum looks like, considering it’s a new marketplace, the fact that it already has 916 registered members and over 1200 messages is commendable.
Over there on the Forum there’s a thread for nearly everything, considering listings for Drugs, Weapons, services etc.
You can also use the “Scam” thread at the end to reach the admins and let them know if you’ve been scammed.
How Effective Is the Forum?
Do admins actually take notice of what people are saying? Well, apparently Empire Market ’s do!
Here’s a screenshot of people asking for a thread called “Hustle and Scheme” on 17th April, 2018.
And on April 30th, 2018 the thread was formed on the forum as can be seen from the above screenshot.
It’s just one of the examples establishing the fact that the threads, replies and messages on the Forum do not fall on deaf ears and are acted upon.
Empire Market Review
Now that I’ve listed the existing official URLs for the marketplace, here’s an updated review of the same.
Currently, the marketplace has 3548 products to be exact, which isn’t that big a number but well everyone starts low, don’t they?
Drugs obviously dominate the marketplace, with 1500+ products in the category which is nearly 50% of the marketplace’s total listings.
Then there are the 650 digital products which host products such as porn accounts, hacked credit cards, bank details and everything else which can be delivered to you digitally without the need to ship products physically.
Fraud claims the third position with products such as hacked bank accounts, CVV dumps etc.
Although what separates Empire Market from other marketplaces is that it’s one of the very few marketplaces which allows “Weapons” on its platform. Currently, they’ve listed Grenades, Gold Plated Ak-47, Berretta to name just a few.
Then talking of the security features, as you could see on the registration page there is the “Login Phrase” which is a phrase you set, known only to you or something personal, such as a favorite quote or something of that sort.
This phrase is then displayed on your account when you login, verifying for you that you’re on the legit Empire Market link.
Had it been a phishing site, it may look and feel the same, but it won’t have access to your phrase and hence that won’t be displayed, which indicates of the site being a scam.
There also is the Six digit pin which you set during registration, this pin is required for all major activities on your account, such as funds withdrawal /purchases and acts as an extra layer of security in addition to the password for your account.
And then there’s the Mnemonic code which is provided to you in case you lose your account, as there’s no other identifiable data used, this 9-word randomly generated Mnemonic code is what’s used to verify your ownership of the account.
Not to mention the obvious existence of the PGP key which you can use to secure your communications and encrypt your account making it as secure as technically possible.
And finally, they integrated 2 of 3 Multisig transactions on 4th March, 2018 which is a “three party” contract (seller + vendor + the marketplace) out of which at least 2 must sign for a transaction to go through further increasing its security.
So, even though it’s not very product rich at the moment, it’s pretty secure.
Initially, Empire Market was launched only with Litecoin (LTC) as the payment method, but as of now they’ve incorporated support for Bitcoin as well as Monero!
Final Words on Empire Market
This isn’t the first time I’ve scribbled down a review on Empire Market marketplace, and I must say they’ve increased their security by quite a stretch, and integrated the new payment methods as well since the last time.
Now my primary focus on this piece was to get you the official URLs for the marketplace, which I suppose you’ve got by now.
Just one final piece of warning, the official Subreddit of Empire Market was banned for violating rules, so any other link you may encounter posing to be the official subreddit is probably a scam.
Also, not just the subreddit, but even for mirror links or any other URLs related to Empire Market, unless and until you’re absolutely certain of the links’ legitimacy, refrain from clicking on them if you value your Bitcoins.
Especially, social media comments and Youtube is a good source for hackers to lure the less educated in and steal their Bitcoins, so just make sure you take all links from official forums and announcement boards, and even then only those which are posted by “Administrators” or “moderator” level members.
Anyway, that’s me signing off folks, do let me know if the above links sorted your problems out, or if you need any more help with the same.
