CannaHome is a new darknet market specializing on the sale of cannabis and marijuana-related products. It debuted on September 15th, 2019 and has seen an influx of customers and suppliers from recently closed markets that also specialize in cannabis-related products. CannaHome, unlike many other darknet markets, is only open to residents of the United States. The most plausible reason for this is to eliminate the possibility of international law enforcement authorities monitoring and perhaps prosecuting market participants.
CannaHome users, unlike most other darknet markets, do not use central wallets maintained by the exchange, but rather use multisignature escrow wallets or transmit coins to escrow-less “Direct Pay” addresses representing their purchase. This gives some security against downtimes or market exit scams because the buyer and seller compose two-thirds of a multisignature address and can determine whether to make a payment if the market is unavailable.
CannaHome Market appears to have a high uptime when compared to some of its competitors, as well as a plethora of mirror URLs through which it can be accessed. With less than 1,800 listings (as of February 2020), it’s on the smaller side of markets and may not have gotten much notice yet. This is a good thing in and of itself, as too much exposure has proven to be fatal for the life cycle of any darknet market. The market has few consumer complaints on review sites and is thought to be good at what it does — about as dependable as such an operation can be for the time being.
CannaHome Market Quick Facts
- CannaHome Link: uuwqgse6rabmw3ngfsihzeqzshq5w3ug3su4yujlnzl4ipsfgkak4uid.onion
- Founded: September 2018
- Number of listings: 1749 (as of February 2020)
- Listing categories: 6
- Coins accepted: Bitcoin (BTC)
- Multisignature escrow: Yes
- Finalize Early: Yes (referred to as “Direct Pay”)
- Vendor bond: $250
Prior to Beginning
Before you begin using CannaHome Market or any other darknet market, you need be familiar with a few fundamental fundamentals. To begin, download and install the Tor browser, which will allow you to connect to darknet websites (of which CannaHome URL Market is one). While the Tor browser masks your connection to the sites you visit when you use it, your IP provider may still be aware that you are accessing the Tor network, so if you value true anonymity when connecting to the darknet, it is recommended that you purchase a VPN (virtual private network) service to remove the connection between your IP and Tor.
You will also need prior experience purchasing and sending cryptocurrency. Learn the fundamentals of transmitting Bitcoin from one address to another, as well as how to identify and enter Bitcoin addresses, assign transaction fees, and what a blockchain confirmation is. Sending BTC or any cryptocurrency to the incorrect address can be an expensive, irreversible blunder with no recourse, therefore it’s a good idea to understand how to move it before attempting to do so for the first time.
How to Open an Account
The account registration process is similar to that of many other darknet markets. You will be required to enter some very easy login criteria after arriving at the login screen by accessing an official CannaHome URL link either here or here. It is critical to obtain a CannaHome URL from only these two sources, as darknet markets are commonly the focus of scams. The account signup conditions are as simple as creating a user name, password, and completing a simple captcha.
Save this information in a safe place where you will remember where it is. You will be permanently locked out of your account if you lose access to your login credentials, as there is no account recovery option.
After providing a user name, password, and captcha, click the red “Register” button.
After hitting the “Register” button, you will note that you are still on the same site, but the tab has now changed to Register a new account, and there is an additional area above the User Name form to enter an Invite Code. Enter the code if you have one. Then click on the “Register” button. You will be prompted to enter your password again. After that, press “Register” once more. You will then be logged into the market and shown the following home screen:
And there you have it! Your account has now been created, and you can begin browsing.
Discovering a Product Listing
The website is organized into sections. The following options are available in the top menu bar: Messages, Orders, and My Account View All Products and Active Vendors. Above there is a green Forum button: the forum is a fantastic location to ask questions concerning the market function that aren’t covered in this guide. To the right of this are two more information options for basic “how-to” queries, FAQ and Wiki, and then the Log out button.
You’ll note that CannaHome has separated its products into six main categories below the menu bar:
- Flowers: marijuana buds, plant material
- Concentrates: wax, shatter
- Carts: vaporizer cartridges
- Edibles: consumable products
- Distillate: high-THC concentrate liquid material
- Shrooms: psychedelic mushrooms (mostly amanita cubensis)
To browse by category, click on the category of the product you’re looking for. This is followed by a list of active merchants, and then three columns of product listings: Top Sellers, New Arrivals, and Vendor Updates.
While there are various ways to find products, the search feature is accessible by pressing the Browse All Products button on the right side of the menu bar. When you hover over it, you may quickly narrow your search by clicking on one of the six product categories that display beneath it, or you can just click the button to search all categories.
The search tool is rather basic and just allows for text searches. While there is a shipping by country filter, we recommend that you do not attempt to make a purchase if you live outside of the United States, as it will most likely not be honored by the seller and may result in sent funds being held up until they can be reimbursed to you by CannaHome. After you’ve entered the term you’re looking for, simply hit enter to see the results.
Before Making a Purchase
Although you have already opened an account, there is some further setup that takes some basic bitcoin understanding in order to properly prepare your account for purchases. You must first give CannaHome with your bitcoin public key in order to use the Multisig Escrow payment option. In order to receive encrypted communications from suppliers, you will also need to copy and paste your PGP public key. Hover over the My Account button in the upper left corner of the menu selections and select “Settings.”
First, copy and paste your PGP public key into the PGP Public Key text box. If you click the Enable PGP Authentication box to the right of this text box, it will enable a 2-Factor Authentication (2-FA) option for safeguarding your account, which means you will need to submit your PGP public key in addition to your password to log in. This makes it more difficult for hackers or random persons to obtain access to your account, but it is not entirely necessary. Then, under Multisig settings, copy and paste your bitcoin master public key. The simplest method to accomplish this is to install the Electrum bitcoin wallet and establish a Standard wallet (if you are using Windows, you will want to download and install the Windows Standalone Executable wallet).
After you’ve created a Standard wallet and saved your password and mnemonic phrase, navigate to the Wallet menu item, scroll down, and click “Information.” You will be shown the public key for that wallet, which should begin with the letters “xpub”, “ypub”, or “zpub”.
After properly pasting your PGP public key and bitcoin master public key into their corresponding fields, click the green “Save Changes” button.
You will then be prompted to decrypt a message to verify your PGP public key. Copy the full message, decrypt it with the PGP public key you supplied, then paste the Authentication Code into the box below. Then, on the right, press the green “Verify” button.
Your PGP account has been validated, your bitcoin public key has been added, and you are now ready to place orders.
Buying Something
When you locate a product you want to buy, click on it to see more information about it. From here, we recommend clicking on the vendor’s name to see important information about the business, such as their refund policy and user ratings. CannaHome, like most darknet markets, has an eBay-style rating system of 1 to 5 stars for its vendors. Of course, vendors with a high rating (>4.5) and multiple ratings (>20) are more likely to be competent and trustworthy than those with a low rating and no or few ratings. On the product listing page, you can also see ratings for each individual product. When you’re finished reviewing the vendor information, click the green “Order Product” button to proceed.
After that, choose your purchase quantity and encrypt your shipping details with the vendor’s public PGP key (name and address). This is a manual process that must be completed using your own PGP software, and we strongly advise you to do so because sending your shipping information unencrypted can be extremely dangerous. Only the seller will be able to decode your message, which means it will never be known by CannaHome or any other organization. After pasting your encrypted shipping information, choose the delivery method you want to use and click the “Continue” button. Following that, you will be given the opportunity to review your order before placing it.
Check that all of the facts and quantities are correct, then click “Continue” after reviewing the vendor’s Refund and Escrow policy. You will then be given one or two payment alternatives, Multisig Escrow and Direct Pay:
Unless you are buying from a vendor you completely trust, we advocate using Multisig Escrow, and while we cover both methods of payment in detail below, we will be using the Multisig Escrow option for the sake of writing this tutorial. Click the Multi-sig Escrow option, copy/paste your bitcoin master public key into the text box, and then click “Continue.”
Following that, you will be prompted to submit a bitcoin refund address so that CannaHome can reimburse your BTC if the transaction is not completed for any reason. As a refund address, you can use any address under your control (it is not suggested to send bitcoin to or from an exchange address), even one of your Electrum addresses (so long as you have saved your Electrum password and mnemonic and will always have access to them). Enter your refund BTC address and click “Continue.”
You will then be taken to another small screen that shows the amount of BTC required to complete your purchase. Before proceeding, make sure you have this amount of bitcoin ready to transmit (notice that it does not have to be from the Electrum address with the public key you gave). When you are certain that you are ready, click “Continue to Payment.”
The Pay page appears next, and it displays a bitcoin address (and corresponding QR code) to which you will pay an exact amount of BTC to finalize your transaction. You have 90 minutes for the Bitcoin Network to discover your transaction, and it is recommended that you pay a reasonable fee for your transaction, as the transaction will very certainly not be accepted by CannaHome if it is never confirmed by the network. Copy/paste the receiving address shown in the box (or scan its QR code if using a mobile wallet), and make sure to transmit the exact amount of bitcoin shown above the address (in the case of the screenshot example, that would be 0.04128665 BTC).
After completing your bitcoin transaction, click the “Reload Payment Status” button below the View Technical Details section to ensure the network has identified your transaction. If the payment was successful, the screen will show that it was detected, and your Current Balance will reflect the amount sent. Your pending transaction will subsequently be communicated to the vendor. Your order will be submitted to the merchant for shipping as soon as the payment is confirmed by the Bitcoin Network.
When you receive your order, don’t forget to finalize it to release the monies held in escrow. This is possible via the Orders area of the menu bar. If you fail to do this, you will cause the vendor’s receipt of your cash to be delayed, which is considered bad etiquette. If you have an issue with the quality of your order, or if it does not arrive by the end of the expected date of arrival, you will be able to dispute it through the Orders section.
For those who want more information on the differences between CannaHome’s two payment methods:
What does Multisig Escrow mean?
CannaHome’s default buying option is Multisig Escrow. For each market buy, a new multisignature address is issued to represent that transaction. Unlike most other bitcoin addresses, this one requires the signatures of two of the three parties that have control of the address. This means that a combination of the vendor and the exchange can initiate the transaction to transfer funds to the vendor, or that if the exchange is unavailable for whatever reason, the buyer and seller can still complete the transaction without the exchange’s involvement.
The Multisig Escrow is the default and recommended option by CannaHome since it ensures that your funds are only delivered to the vendor once you have received and approved your goods. If there is a disagreement and the market rules in your favor, your coins will be reimbursed to the refund address you specified. If the market decides in the vendor’s favor, they will co-sign a transaction to release the cash. In any case, this ensures that the monies are never directly kept by CannaHome, which means they cannot be taken from or by them in the event of a sudden closure.
What does Direct Pay mean?
Vendors with some experience can gain and enable Direct Pay privileges, which allow them to avoid the escrow holding period if a consumer chooses to make a purchase using this method. Direct Pay is CannaHome’s form of Finalize Early (FE) payment, and it is only available to vendors that are highly trusted and have completed at least 200 orders with a total positive feedback rating of 90% or higher. The market does not refund funds for Direct Pay listings, although the vendor can do so at any time.
Before purchasing a product from a vendor who has their listings set to Direct Pay, make careful to check the most current user comments. If you have an issue with a Direct Pay purchase, CannaHome’s assistance will most likely be unable to assist you, and your only option will be to leave a poor rating for the seller.
How do I know if I am buying a Multi-Sig Escrow or Direct Pay listing?
In the Order Product menu, each product listing will say “Multisig Escrow” and/or “Direct Pay.” Remember that just because a vendor has Direct Pay rights does not indicate that all of their listings will have that option; some may be escrow-only. Also, just because a retailer accepts Direct Pay does not guarantee that your transaction will proceed properly. Buyers can always purchase through Multisig Escrow, however only some merchants will have the option of Direct Pay.
Summary
You are now prepared to begin using the CannaHome Market. You are likely to have a positive experience here if you follow the ideas in this guide and use strong security and privacy precautions, as well as some basic common sense.
If you have any concerns about utilizing CannHome Market that aren’t answered in this tutorial, see the market’s FAQ and Wiki sections for further information. You can also visit the CannaHome official forum (known as Tree House) to learn about what other users are saying and their experiences. Also, keep in mind that comprehending what you’re doing is critical before you begin, especially when it comes to something as delicate as bitcoin and darknet markets.