Squeak Road: Open source darknet market
2745 sats \ 33 comments \ @yzernik 4 Aug 2022 bitcoin freebie
"Squeak Road" is a new app in the Umbrel app store that lets anyone run their own darknet market.
Just go to the app store and install the app, and you are now the admin of a darknet market.
You can share the onion address publicly so that buyers and sellers can find your market.
All payments and withdrawals use lightning network.
As the admin of your market, all you have to do is set the fee rate, and approve/reject listings from sellers.
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231 sats \ 7 replies \ @deleted231216 4 Aug 2022
Nice, happy to see another Bitcoin marketplace. Are there any screenshots or links to existing Squeak Road marketplaces? (I don't have a node.)
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200 sats \ 5 replies \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022 freebie
You can see the Umbrel gallery images here: https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel-apps-gallery/commit/4b4c2f4f3dfb504ba0f9fbf8949e91daea6bf1dc
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @deleted231216 4 Aug 2022
Looks great. :) Earning fees could incentivize people to host a Bitcoin-friendly Craigslist alternative for their city, hobby or profession. Customer reviews is a good addition. Is escrow included?
Do sellers and customers only need a Lightning wallet (e.g. Blue Wallet) and Tor Browser (only the operator must run a node)?
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1112 sats \ 3 replies \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022 freebie
  • All orders are escrowed until the seller marks the order as shipped. The seller immediately gets access to the funds at that point. The buyer can rate order at any time after escrow closes. You should only buy from sellers with a high seller rating to minimize the risk that they scam you.
  • Sellers need a lightning wallet to receive withdrawals. Buyers need a lightning wallet to pay for orders, and to receive withdrawals when they get a refunded order.
  • Sellers and buyers don't need to run a full bitcoin node, they can use a custodial lightning wallet.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @deleted231216 4 Aug 2022
Perfect. :) Shared in Twitter and Matrix.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Brunswick 4 Aug 2022
Is it really an escrow if the seller can simply click a button to receive payment?
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22 sats \ 0 replies \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022 freebie
Not really. It's just to make sure that the seller agrees to ship the selected quantity of items to the provided address.
Once the seller has marked the order as shipped, they are staking their reputation on the buyer rating.
So it really comes down to a reputation system.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 4 Aug 2022
Also... you should get a node :)
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101 sats \ 5 replies \ @nout 4 Aug 2022
Anyone has success creating listings? Also somewhat annoying that it makes requests to gstatic for fonts :(
When trying to create listing it redirects to login page even though I'm already logged in (as admin). @yzernik
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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022 freebie
You can only create a listing with a non-admin account. There should be a more clear error message for this.
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101 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 4 Aug 2022
This initial journey would be great to solve, because otherwise it adds annoying friction in the initial phase. E.g. if you really need to force that admin can't have listings, then you could automatically create user account for the admin. I'm saying this because a lot of people that will want to create a market are doing that because they actually want to sell something and practically speaking that's the only way to really bootstrap the economy around the market.
Useful metric here would be the time from installation to the first listing...
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022
Thanks for the feedback. We'll try to put out a new release that makes it more clear the difference between admin and non-admin roles.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @yzernik OP 5 Aug 2022
The fonts requests issues has been fixed: https://github.com/yzernik/squeakroad/releases/tag/v0.1.11
Now the static font files are saved locally.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @nout 5 Aug 2022
Perfect, thanks! :)
For DNM there are more optimizations that you could consider to make it work well over Tor, like including initial css in the index.html response directly, so it doesn't have to make another request.
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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Roll 4 Aug 2022
What do you mean by "darknet market" ?
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130 sats \ 1 reply \ @yzernik OP 4 Aug 2022 freebie
It's a market where the market owner, sellers, and buyers are all anonymous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_market
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @Roll 4 Aug 2022
I was not sur. I m just suprised but it makes sense at the end. But it could an point that some institutions shown Umbrel as "Dark".... :(
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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 4 Aug 2022
That's pretty cool. One could use it for more that darknet-stuff maybe I could use it for all my craigslist stuff.
Only needs a big adoption userbase now ,😁😁
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22 sats \ 0 replies \ @Majjin 4 Aug 2022
Love it! Bitcoin enables free markets, no matter what the people in power say.
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104 sats \ 5 replies \ @EnormousPony 4 Aug 2022
Very nice. Everyone should run a personal darknet market Free Ross Ulbricht he did nothing wrong
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47 sats \ 4 replies \ @oli 4 Aug 2022
He lost all my support with his murder-for-hire attempts.
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20 sats \ 3 replies \ @random_bitcoiner 4 Aug 2022
People keep bringing this up. Why do you think he wasn't he charged with murder-for-hire?
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22 sats \ 1 reply \ @nokey 4 Aug 2022 freebie
It's hard to parse (from Wikipedia):
Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had paid $730,000 in murder-for-hire deals targeting at least five people, allegedly because they threatened to reveal Ulbricht's Silk Road enterprise. Prosecutors believe no contracted killing actually occurred. Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder for hire, but evidence was introduced at trial supporting the allegations. The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life, and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to affirm the life sentence.
Ulbricht was separately indicted in federal court in Maryland on a single murder-for-hire charge, alleging that he contracted to kill one of his employees (a former Silk Road moderator). Prosecutors moved to drop this indictment after his New York conviction and sentence became final.
I guess we'll never know. But it's easy for the lay person to be confused on the matter.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @allark 5 Aug 2022
New York and Maryland are some of the most anti-america, corrupt and Gulag-like courts in the US.
They will fabricate evidence and gin up ANY charges to send a message.
Don't trust the US judiciary in these places, also, California. :)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @oli 4 Aug 2022
I am not sure, but I think it's probably because he is already serving a double life sentence and it was judged unnecessary to spend further resources on prosecuting him. Prosecutors have that kind of discretion:
If the offender is already subject to a substantial sentence, or is already incarcerated, as a result of a conviction for another offense, the prosecutor should weigh the likelihood that another conviction will result in a meaningful addition to his/her sentence, might otherwise have a deterrent effect, or is necessary to ensure that the offender's record accurately reflects the extent of his/her criminal conduct.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @relc 8 Aug 2022
in the ol days there were discussions or visions to have a market in bitcoinqt. still remembering the coffee button?
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @relc 8 Aug 2022
feels like a rare hydra moment to me.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @f321x 5 Aug 2022
Auctions would be great too
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1 sat \ 2 replies \ @takaponka 4 Aug 2022
Everyone here ignoring the fact that LN privacy for receiver sucks. So this would be very foolish to use the platform for illegal and risky activities. Fortunately privacy for both sides is coming ! Apart that it looks interesting.
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60 sats \ 1 reply \ @yzernik OP 5 Aug 2022
You have to be very careful about privacy if you are going to use it.
Do you have any specifics about what privacy improvements are coming? eltoo? PTLCs?
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @takaponka 5 Aug 2022
Look around for blind routings, don't remember which dev is working on this. Once we hace good privacy for both sides (sender and receiver), will be game changer. At the onchain level soon we won't make the difference between multisig channel opening and classic multisig, because taproot !
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @rodarmor 7 Aug 2022 freebie
Yooo, awesome work!
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @The_Lone_Cushite 3 Apr 2023
I know I'm really late to this thread but I have recently enabled my instance of squeakroad and set up marketplace where users can buy/sell all types of watches. You could be the first one to set up your vendor account here: http://tf6utnjwa2oqnm4hfn3eofbfidfikviathmf7c7bhmxcrh2gimcdveid.onion
Also shout out to @yzernik for this project!
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