Customers and merchants on the AlphaBay darknet market breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when admin DeSnake returned from a three-week vacation to allay fears that his site had been compromised or was being used in an escape scam.
In addition to accessibility concerns created by a prolonged DDOS attack on the site, AlphaBay had been experiencing a slew of troubles in recent weeks that prevented many users from logging in, generating new deposit addresses, or receiving credit for deposited monies. Most of these issues appear to have been rectified by Saturday, Oct. 29th, since the market’s main URL is now operational, all users can log into their accounts, and deposit addresses are being produced as usual.
“Due to many variables, I was not able to reach Dread on a regular basis, hence I have not been active to post,” DeSnake said in a thread addressing accessibility concerns in the AlphaBay subdread, before going on to explain the technical reasons behind recent deposit address creation errors. He also explained the cause for the market’s backlog of unresolved disputes and support tickets, claiming that the moderator in charge was suffering from “health concerns.”
AlphaBay subdread moderator EvZen offered an explanation of the market’s accessibility difficulties.
DeSnake also addressed the problem of uncredited deposits, stating that a significant backlog of transactions had accumulated during the period the market’s canary had expired and that all cash will be reimbursed to user accounts soon.
The expiration of the market’s built-in canary is not a new issue for AlphaBay, and it has already resulted in a temporary shutdown of the market twice this year, once in July and once in August. Although DeSnake’s three-week hiatus is unusual given his history of consistent visits to Dread since his return in 2021, most AlphaBay users were content with the answers he supplied and were usually happy to return to business as usual.
There is currently no message on AlphaBay addressing the recent slew of complaints raised by its users on Dread, but the market appears to be back up and running.