Black Pyramid Market: A Technical Review of the Darknet’s Multisig-Only Bazaar

Black Pyramid launched in late-2022 as a narcotics-only, Monero-first marketplace that refuses to touch Bitcoin. The admins—former GammaGoblin moderators—market it as “the last multisig market you’ll ever need,” a nod to the wave of exit-scams that followed Empire’s demise. For researchers, the site is interesting because it enforces 2-of-3 multisig for every order, offers no onsite wallets, and keeps no server-side logs. Those design choices remove the classic “honeypot” risk, but they also raise the bar for casual buyers who still type “how to PGP” into Reddit.

Background & pedigree

The market first appeared on dread in November 2022 under the handle pyramid_admin. Old-timers quickly spotted the writing style of the former Gamma support lead who vanished after the GG servers were seized in 2021. Rather than resurrect that brand, the team forked the open-source “Shadow-Cartel” engine, ripped out the BTC module, and rewrote the escrow contract in Rust so it compiles to WebAssembly. The result is a lightweight backend that can run comfortably behind a three-hop Tor hidden-service configuration. No grand reopening hype, no token sale—just a quiet invite round to 200 established vendors who already had 500+ sales on other venues.

Features & functionality

Product scope is narrow: drugs, precursors, and paraphernalia. Digital goods, fraud, and weapons are explicitly banned; listings are removed without refund. The catalog is still modest—roughly 4 500 listings—but average ticket size is higher than on Versus or ASAP because bulk powder dominates. Navigation feels like early TradeRoute: sidebar filters for region, shipping method, and price bands, plus a “stealth rating” tag vendors must update monthly. Notable extras:

• Built-in XMR exchange rate peg refreshed every 120 s, so prices stay stable even during volatility spikes.
• “Lock-time extend” button lets buyers add 24 h to the auto-finalize clock without opening a dispute—useful for trans-Atlantic packs caught in customs.
• Vendor bond is 1 200 USD equivalent, but drops to 600 USD if the applicant signs a message from a PGP key older than 2019, a neat way to recycle old reputation.

Security model

Black Pyramid’s core security thesis is simple: if the market never controls the coins, it can’t exit-scam. Every order generates a unique 2-of-3 multisig address (buyer, vendor, market). The buyer deposits exact amount + 2 % fee; the market only signs the release transaction after the buyer clicks “Finalize.” Disputes are handled by a human staff of six; if they side with the vendor, they co-sign with that key. If they refund the buyer, they sign with the buyer key. Because the market never holds more than one private key, the worst-case loss is the 2 % commission in escrow at any moment. Server-side, the site enforces per-session TLS keys rotated every three hours, and the nginx headers reveal only “Server: cloudflare-nginx” to blend into the CDN noise. For login, only ed25519 ssh-style keys are accepted; no passwords are stored anywhere.

User experience

First-time visitors notice the Spartan layout: white text on black, no JavaScript, no captcha loops. The registration form asks for a username, public PGP block, and an optional withdrawal address—nothing else. Once inside, the dashboard shows open orders, multisig deposit scripts, and a raw transaction decoder so you can audit the redeem script on any block explorer. The workflow is less forgiving than traditional escrow markets: if you lose your private key, staff cannot recover funds. The built-in wizard guides you through signing the release transaction with FeatherWallet or Monero-GUI, but one misplaced fee level and the TX is stuck. Power users love the transparency; rookies post angry threads calling it “user-hostile.” Both camps are probably right.

Reputation & track record

Seventeen months in, Black Pyramid has processed an estimated 38 k orders worth 5.4 million USD at spot prices. According to independent chain analysis (Elliptic, Jan 2024), only 0.7 % of those coins hit a known KYC exchange, a lower “taint rate” than both ASAP and Bohemia. The market’s sub-dread counts 11 k subscribers with a 72 % “trust ratio,” calculated by the dread bot from post history and upvote patterns. More telling: only three vendors have lost their bond for non-shipment, and the public dispute log shows a 93 % resolution rate in under 72 h. No public breaches, no leaked database, no onion clone phishing wave—yet. Critics point out the small sample size and worry the codebase hasn’t received a third-party audit.

Current status & reliability

As of May 2024, the main onion is up for 97 % of any given week, beating the 87 % average across larger markets. Mirror rotation happens every 48 h; links are posted on dread and two unrelated paste bins, each protected by the market’s own PGP signature. Phishing clones appear within hours, but they reuse outdated keys and are easy to spot. The bigger operational risk is Monero’s upcoming hard-fork: the multisig workflow relies on the pre-Seraphis address format. Admins say they have tested backward compatibility on stagenet, but conservative vendors are already withdrawing excess escrow until after the switch. Load times hover around 2.5 s over Tor, acceptable for a Rust binary running on modest VPS hardware. No Cloudflare-style MITM, but that also means the hidden service occasionally gets throttled during DDoS extortion campaigns.

Conclusion

Black Pyramid is a niche venue that trades convenience for verifiable security. If you already multisig your own Bitcoin deals and compile Monero from source, the market feels like home: minimal attack surface, no hot wallets, transparent escrow logic. If you need password recovery, instant finalization, or a shiny iPhone app, look elsewhere. For researchers, it is a live experiment in “trustless” darknet commerce—an attempt to see whether removing the exit-scam incentive can sustain a community. Early numbers are encouraging, but markets rarely die of technical failure; they fall apart when the humans behind the keys get greedy, sloppy, or arrested. Use the usual precautions: Tails offline, fresh PGP subkeys, no cross-contamination with clearnet identities. And remember, multisig only protects the coins; it doesn’t stop the postman from opening your pack.