One of the world’s largest and most successful darknet markets, Bohemia, turned two years old today, celebrating what it estimates to be over 730 days up and running. The market posted birthday notices on both its own site and Dread, where it was received with congratulatory replies and well wishes.
According to Bohemia’s staff account on Dread, the market is “very proud of” the standard they helped to create for their community, adding that they “have NO intentions on stopping that,” seemingly in an attempt to allay fears of a potential exit.
“Without the continuous support of everybody involved (merchants, users, dread team etc), we wouldn’t have been able to hit such a milestone,” wrote the Bohemia account on Dread. “A word of advice to all up & coming marketplaces – perseverance is key!” they added.
Bohemia’s birthday announcement posted on the market’s homepage.
Bohemia is currently the second largest English-language darknet market, with over 45,000 listings spread across 16 different categories. It trails the ASAP market by a few thousand listings and has been closing in on its rival since the sudden closure of AlphaBay. Although it has suffered through crippling DDOS attacks in the past, it remains one of the most consistently available markets, helped by a rotating mirror system and more recently, a listing in the Daunt link provision service.
Bohemia is popular due to its diverse selection of vendors and implementation of different payment options, which include traditional escrow, 2/3 BTC multisig, and Direct Pay for XMR payments. It also features links to vendor profiles on Recon and substance information pages on PsychonautWiki.
In Sept 2022, Bohemia launched the splintered-off Cannabia marketplace, which serves to primarily focus on cannabis, hash, and THC-containing products. The decision was made because Bohemia admins saw an opportunity to “fill in a hole which remains in the DNM community since the exits of the 2 biggest cannabis-only marketplaces,” which included the recently-retired Cannazon and CannaHome markets.