Icarus Market review
If you’re on this Icarus Market review, you either heard of Icarus Market recently, or just need a new darknet mall. Either way, you’re at the right spot.
As is probably known to you, Darknet Markets keep exit-scamming, getting seized, or hacked.
This paves the way for new darknet markets like Icarus. And it’s understandable, considering how one single darknet commodity, “Drugs” , was valued at over $180 million back in 2018 (source: Investopedia). We do believe the number is much higher now, and even higher is the total valuation of the darknet industry.
Throughout this Icarus Market review, we’ll dissect the marketplace to its core, bringing out all the nitty-gritty details that you need to understand the marketplace, and its potential best.
The questions we’re targeting include:
- Is Icarus Market user-interface easy and smooth?
- What are the available products on Icarus Market?
- Is selling on Icarus Market allowed and free?
- What are the accepted cryptocurrencies on Icarus Market?
- Is Icarus Market wallet-less?
- What search-filters does Icarus Market offer?
- Are Icarus Market accounts and trades secure?
Icarus Market overview
A quick snapshot of everything the marketplace is and isn’t:
- TOR URL: tjfr4vfwmq6df4hc
- Registrations: Required, free & instant.
- Security: Escrow / PGP (2-FA) / secret phrase / security PIN/ Mnemonic code.
- Vendor fee: $200.00 (non-refundable).
- Payment: Monero + Bitcoin + Litecoin.
- Products: 25,000 (approx).
- Forum: None.
Alternative Mirror:
- icaruot57k4s2fgrm5tz4dflj4rigvyixny2wygrnermispvasf6icad.onion
- icaruhkb6sndpgz3dwibqserprytvhplize5bfznjyzu7p44xdgptvqd.onion
- icarupok75xbjxqqqyxhgi4grb4lnzjkg52u3sqg7b4hnpyrmtwurhqd.onion
- icarucz2c5b5m24oqip2wjx5qehxr5haecfmgjxxt2otg45tjhlwnrid.onion
Let’s get you a deeper insight of this Icarus Market review then?
Does Icarus Market require registrations?
Yes, it does. Every other best marketplace out there does. I’ve only seen maybe 2 darknet markets in my lifetime which let users full access without registration.
The registration on Icarus is pretty straight-forward, easy, instant and doesn’t require invites.
You only need to enter an username, password, 6-digit PIN, and a security phrase.
Note that the currency option is only for the “display currency“. Meaning, this is the currency in which the product-prices will be shown. It doesn’t mean you can make payments in these currencies.
Is Icarus Market user-interface easy and smooth?
Icarus Market seems to respect tradition. The UI is almost alike all other popular marketplaces out there.
It comprises of a top-bar, a left-sidebar and centre-screen.
The top-bar as usual is what can be used to navigate around the marketplace. Users can use it to reach their message-centre, vendor-application, wallet and support.
The left-sidebar then lists all the available products. It makes finding products easier and faster. And the centre-screen is what displays the products, search-results, notifications, updates etc.
The product-listing UI too is pretty transparent and detailed. Here’s what it looks like:
So whenever a buyer searches for a product, the interface displays:
- The level of the seller listing the item.
- Finalize-Early availability.
- Shipping source and destination.
- Number of sales, views and quantity for the listing.
- And the price.
This helps users on two fronts. First, they get extensive details about the listing without having to go to individual product-pages.
Secondly, the details about the vendor and the listings help users understand vendors’ legitimacy and authenticity.
Any vendor on a higher level, and higher number of sales is a better choice than those on a lower level, or with 0 sales.
The marketplace made sure obtaining and understanding any piece of data is as easy as possible. Hence, you can simply click on the name of a vendor to get more details about them.
These details include the vendors’:
- Number of disputes won/lost.
- FE allowed/not-allowed status.
- Trusted/not-trusted status.
- And even Feedback and ratings from other marketplaces.
In a nutshell, even for first timers, there’s not a lot they’d get confused about.
What are the available products on Icarus Market?
Without beating around the bush, here are the primary categories of products available on Icarus Market:
- Drugs
- Counterfeit items
- Digital products
- Carded items
- Software and Malware
- Security & Hosting
- Fraud
- Carded items
- Jewels and Gold.
Because the marketplace is pretty new, not all of these categories have active listings available. However, majority of these do.
The screenshot above clearly shows the total products and the available categories of products.
[Previously true, now outdated info- In total, the marketplace has nearly 420 individual listings. However, the number isn’t very relevant. By the time you read this Icarus Market review, it probably would be multiple times higher than this.]
Updated info, August, 2020: In less than 4 months, the marketplace now stands with over 25,000 individual listings. That’s quite the boost from its negligible listings when we last updated this Icarus Market review.
Is selling on Icarus Market allowed and free?
If you’re a vendor reading this Icarus Market review, you probably do need answers to the question.
Well yes, selling is allowed on Icarus Market. As for being free, it both is, and isn’t. In other words, it’s free for established vendors. It’s a temporary promotion the marketplace is running to attract new, established vendors.
For everyone else, there’s a $200.00 non-refundable fee which needs to be paid for the vendor accounts.
Vendors are allowed to sell anything and everything except underage porn, and weapons. Also as of now, the vendor-bond can only be paid in Bitcoins.
What are the accepted cryptocurrencies on Icarus Market?
As we just mentioned, the vendor-bond can only be paid for in Bitcoins. However, fortunately for buyers, the market also accepts payments via XMR (Monero) and Litecoin (LTC) in addition to Bitcoin.
Both the cryptocurrencies have a minimum-deposit requirement. Deposits smaller than this aren’t accepted. These are:
- Bitcoin: 0.0007 BTC
- Monero: 0.2 XMR
- Litecoin: 0.1LTC
Is Icarus Market wallet-less?
We just talked of payment modes in this Icarus Market review, didn’t we? Another aspect attached to the same is the deposit-method a marketplace uses.
Unfortunately, no. Icarus Market isn’t wallet-less. Sure, it would’ve increased trust and security if it was wallet-less, but it isn’t.
Deposits need to be made in advance, and must meet the minimum deposit requirements mentioned above.
What search-filters does the marketplace offer?
One final aspect we’d like to discuss before wrapping this Icarus Market review up is its search-filters.
Doubt us not when we say, it truly is arguably the most filter-rich search-feature we’ve seen till date.
So, here’s a glimpse of it:
Here are the filters it offers:
Update: August, 2020: These are the updated filters which were added recently.
- Type: Physical/Digital.
- Minimum’/Maximum price.
- Payment cryptocurrency.
- Sort by options: No sales/ low price/high price.
- Escrow/Finalize-Early
- Trusted/F.E vendors.
- Shipping source.
- Vendor level.
- Category
If you’ve been through any of our other Darknet Market reviews, you’d agree that this is everything that we generally complain about other marketplaces “not having”.
Especially, the minimum price-range and payment cryptocurrency filters are extremely rare, as well as impressive. Even the vendor-choice or the “sort by” options aren’t that common.
In a nutshell, the search-results are extremely accurate and to the liking of the user on Icarus Market.
Are Icarus Market trades and accounts secure?
There are two fronts to this question, first being trade-security, the second being accounts’-security.
As for trade security, the vendor-profile transparency as mentioned earlier in this Icarus Market review do help avoid scammers.
Then there’s the regular Escrow. The Finalize-Early feature too is only provided to established vendors making sure users aren’t scammed.
The one trade-security feature we’d say it’s missing is multisig transactions. But then again, in the marketplaces’ defense, majority of the users refrain from the more complex multisig transactions anyway.
There also is PGP which encrypts user communication. It’s not exactly a feature which increases trade-security, however, it does make sure the communications aren’t leaked in case there’s a seizure or hack.
Moving back to accounts’-security, here are the security features offered:
- 2-FA via PGP: This ensures the account remains safe even when the password is compromised.
- 6-digit PIN: Even with the password and 2-FA compromised, the PIN prevents unauthorized withdrawals, or changes to the 2-FA settings.
- Secret phrase: The popular anti-phishing measure which lets users set a secret phrase only known to them. It doesn’t need to be entered anywhere. Rather, it’s just displayed on the user-dashboard indicating the marketplace is indeed authentic and not a fake phishing site.
- Mnemonic code/Recovery key: Just after registration, Icarus Market provides us with a 9-digit Mnemonic code which can be used to recover accounts.
Conclusion – Icarus Market review
Let’s bid adieu to this Icarus Market review then? We may or may not have encompassed all the features and aspects of the marketplace, but we do hope we did enough to paint you a strong picture of it?
In a nutshell, the UI, transparency, product-availability, and security features are no disappointments. In some cases (the UI and search-filters) they’re even impressive.
The fact that two different cryptocurrencies can be used to make payments further adds more options for buyers.
What could be improved? Well, vendor-fee could be accepted in XMR in addition to BTC. A wallet-less payment mode we’re sure would be appreciated as well.
But apart from that, everything seems to be rainbows and sunshine for Icarus Market. But, you sure should have your own opinion, do make use of the comment-box on this Icarus Market review and let us know what you think of the marketplace.
