Kraken is a newer Russian-language darknet market that caters specifically to customers in the territories of the Russian Federation. It has loose ties with the now-defunct Hydra marketplace in that it appears to be sponsored by the WayAway Russian darknet forum, which paired with the darknet market LegalRC in 2015 to found Hydra. It mainly serves as a drugs market and currently features over 1,700 vendor shops covering nearly every population center within the Russian Federation. Kraken’s straight-forward site design makes browsing easy and it is free of much of the clutter that bogged down Hydra.
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Like Hydra once was, Kraken is a Bitcoin-only market that uses the “treasures” system where orders for drugs are buried or placed in specifical locations given to the buyer after a purchase. Payment is not received by the vendor until the order has been reviewed by the buyer, or 24 hours has passed after purchase. The most popular vendor pages are displayed prominently at the front though individual listings can be browsed by category or subcategory. There is also a simple search feature. Somewhat interestingly, Kraken supports its own kladsmen training program in which couriers receive training on proper treasure delivery and hiding techniques.
Kraken Product Selection
Kraken is mainly centered around the trade of drugs although it does contain listings for digital items and professional services as well. Categories supported by the market include Stimulants, Euphoretics (MDMA), Marijuana, Psychedelics, Pharmaceuticals, Opiates, Chemical Reagents, Documents, Digital Goods, Equipment (computers & phones), Cards & Banks, Graphics & Advertising, and Work. Along with the usually-banned unpleasantries, Kraken expressly forbids the listing of services pertaining to DDOS attacks or coordination of such attacks through their marketplace.
Kraken Payment Methods
Kraken supports only Bitcoin as a payment option. In addition to the usual account wallet system in which buyers fund their account with a BTC deposit, buyers can also use payment providers to buy BTC with rubles in their Exchange section. These exchangers can also be used at the per-order level as well. Kraken actually incentivizes the use of their BTC payment providers during orders by giving buyers a 5% “cashback” award to their account after every purchase in which they are used. The market has also enabled several coupon and discount features in which buyers are encouraged to take part.
Kraken Pros
- Huge selection of vendor shops — one of the biggest of any Russian-language market.
- Market is easy to navigate; vendor shops and listings are organized in an orderly fashion.
- Individual item purchases can be facilitated through hosted RUB-BTC exchangers.
Kraken Cons
- BTC-only, no multisig escrow or advanced payment options.
- Services Russia and territories within the Russian Federation only.
- Tor site is sometimes unstable and suffers from intermittent downtime.
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In all, Kraken is clearly aiming to be a worthy successor of Hydra, employing many of the same functions and methodologies. The market does not seem concerned with potential threats from advances in blockchain analytics which have largely deanonymized Bitcoin transactions in recent years but they have limited the sale of potentially harmful services such as those pertaining to DDOS attacks. The market is still too young to know if it is dedicated to lasting for the long-haul, but they have already demonstrated that they are serious about rising above some fierce competition.
