Illuminating Dark Paths : Identifying Patterns of Darknet Drug Vendor Migration

Sammanfattning: Drug vendors on darknet cryptomarkets are notoriously elusive. When cryptomarkets are subjectedto law enforcement crackdowns or other types of closures, rather than being deterred vendorsmigrate to other cryptomarkets. However, knowledge is lacking on why vendors migrate in thedirection that they do. A Swedish cryptomarket vendor community, whose primary cryptomarket”Flugsvamp 3.0” was suddenly closed in October of 2021, reappeared on a new cryptomarketcalled ”Archetyp Market” shortly after. With this thesis, I attempt to explore how the vendors ofthis community might have coordinated their migration to Archetyp Market. Building upon recenttheoretical contributions of vendor decision-making, I propose two ideal types of vendors inmigration. The first type is vendors with high reputation who have a greater economic incentive tore-establish themselves quickly, to minimize loss. Vendors with lower reputation will not have thesame need to move quickly. As their primary concern is to reach new customers, they will look tocryptomarkets with a high level of general trust. Cryptomarkets that have received an influx ofhigh reputation vendors will thereby have reached an attractive level of general trust, causing aninflux of lower reputable vendors. I tested this hypothesis by collecting cross-sectional data fromArchetyp Market and measured the covariation between when the Swedish vendors joined the siteand their reputational status. Using a standard linear regression analysis, I found a moderatepositive covariation between two reputationally related variables and the number of days sincejoining Archetyp Market. The vendors with high reputations joined Archetyp Market earlier thanthose with less. This finding thereby provides us with insight into how vendor reputation is not justeffective in influencing buyers, but also other vendors. Additionally, I proposed how thesereputational values could be developed into early indicators of the direction of vendors duringcryptomarket closure.