The original AlphaBay had 200,000 members at the time of its confiscation (according to the DEA and the Department of Justice) and has already crossed the same big milestone – 200,000 registered users – just 6 months after its reopening by the original Co-admin DeSnake.
“According to publicly available information on AlphaBay prior to its takedown, one AlphaBay staff member claimed that it serviced over 200,000 users and 40,000 vendors”
DEA & DOJ claim
AlphaBay experienced a significant increase in users and popularity as a result of major darknet markets such as White House Market, ToRReZ Market, Cannazon, Monopoly and Cartel Market closing down or being scammed, and it is now one of the most popular darknet markets and the only one that accepts only monero as a payment method.
Although AlphaBay has quickly grown in popularity, many users have expressed doubts about DeSnake’s motivations and why he felt the need to restart AlphaBay given the previous admin was slain and DeSnake should be wealthy from the original AlphaBay.
DeSnake, on the other hand, has been working hard in recent weeks to update AlphaBay and add special phishing defenses, and he claims to have other motivations other than money, and he is dedicated to his new project – a decentralized darknet market that will be open sourced.
Only time will tell if the new AlphaBay admin will follow his word and be more successful than Alexander Cazes, who was apprehended and finally died in prison.