Black Pyramid Darknet Market – Mirror #5, Feature Set, and Operational Realities

Black Pyramid has quietly become a reference point for researchers tracking post-Alphabay decentralization. The fifth public mirror—usually referenced as “BP5” in Telegram channels—went live in late-2023 after a short hiatus caused by a DDoS campaign that knocked mirrors 1-4 offline for almost two weeks. Because the market uses a rotating cookie-based domain system, the numeric suffix is less about vanity and more about keeping track of which codebase snapshot you are actually talking to. Below is a field-notes style overview of what BP5 currently offers, how it differs from earlier iterations, and the practical OPSEC questions buyers and vendors are debating on dread.

Background and short history

Black Pyramid first appeared in April-2022 as a single-seller “invite-only” shop run by a small group that had previously sold on Monopoly Market. After Monopoly’s voluntary shutdown, the team rewrote the backend in Laravel, adopted the now-common “market + vendor shop” hybrid model, and opened registration. Mirrors 1-3 lasted roughly six months before a combination of extortion DDoS and mirror phishing forced a complete key rotation. Mirror #4 introduced the current generation PGP-onion URL verification page and an optional per-order PIN in addition to the usual login 2FA. Mirror #5 (BP5) is basically 4.2 rebased onto new infrastructure, with the added novelty of XMR-only checkout and a “time-lock” withdrawal script that prevents vendors from pulling coins for 24 h after the buyer finalizes—an anti-exit-scam measure that has drawn mixed reviews.

Core features and functionality

BP5 keeps the minimalist monochrome UI that earlier mirrors used, but adds a collapsible sidebar for filtering by ship-from region, accepted currency (still overwhelmingly XMR), and escrow type. The listing taxonomy is still the classic “Drugs—Fraud—Digital—Services” split, yet each category now supports sub-tags such as “OD—overnight domestic” or “Stealth—vacuum mylar,” making large result sets easier to scan.

  • Escrow modes: Full escrow (90 % of listings), “Partial (50 % release on shipment),” and “Finalize-Early” for gold-level vendors only.
  • Multisig: Optional 2-of-3 for BTC legacy listings; XMR uses the market’s own view-key setup rather than true on-chain multisig.
  • Internal PGP: Messages are GPG-encrypted server-side; users can still opt for client-side encryption if they paste their own block.
  • Revenue share: 4 % commission on full-escrow sales, 3 % on partial, 0 % on FE—vendors pay a non-refundable €150 bond to unlock FE.

A small but welcome tweak is the “stealth photo preview” that displays a 200×200 pixel blurred thumbnail until the buyer clicks to reveal the high-resolution original—useful for anyone browsing in Tails with unsafe browser closed.

Security model and escrow flow

Black Pyramid’s server stack is hidden behind a standard three-proxy Tor setup: Nginx → HAProxy → PHP-FPM. The market signs every onion address with its 4096-bit offline key; the detached signature is posted on the verification page and mirrored to four independent paste sites. Users who skip this step routinely end up on phishing clones that replace the withdrawal address with the attacker’s own sub-address—always verify.

When a buyer pays, the market creates a disposable XMR sub-address and watches for the required confirmations (currently two). Once detected, the order status changes to “Paid,” and the vendor is notified. After the vendor marks “Shipped,” the buyer has a default auto-finalize window of 14 days (7 for domestic). Disputes can be opened any time before finalization; staff usually responds within 24 h and can extend escrow, force a 50 % split, or refund entirely. Vendor bond is slashed automatically if staff rules against them in three disputes within 30 days.

User experience and accessibility

BP5 loads faster than most Laravel markets I have tested over the past year; first paint clocks in around 3.5 s over a 1 Mbit Tor circuit, compared with 6-8 s for ASAP or Kerberos. The registration form is a single page: username, password, login PIN, and a mandatory PGP public block. No e-mail or invitation code is required, although new accounts cannot vend until they pay the bond. One design quirk: the “Wallet” tab is hidden inside the user dropdown rather than the top-level menu, leading to occasional support tickets from users who think deposits are broken.

Mobile access works surprisingly well through Onion Browser on iOS; the sidebar converts into a slide-out tray, and QR codes are rendered for XMR addresses, making copay on Cake Wallet painless. Just remember to disable auto-correct when typing mnemonic seeds—another small OPSEC detail that is easy to overlook.

Reputation, trust metrics, and track record

Since the launch of mirror #3, Black Pyramid has not suffered a publicly confirmed breach. The only notable incident was a leaked database dump in January-2023 that contained usernames and hashed passwords; post-mortem showed the attacker exploited an outdated WordPress blog the staff briefly ran on the same server. No order data or private keys were compromised, but the team retired the blog and moved all ancillary services to a separate box.

Vendor levels are color-coded: Grey (new), Blue (≥10 sales, ≥90 % positive), Gold (≥100 sales, FE unlocked), and Black (≥500 sales, manual review). Buyer accounts also accrue “trust points” for finalized orders, though these are mostly cosmetic and do not affect escrow limits. A running transparency page lists total users, total vendors, and cumulative commission—numbers appear consistent with what blockchain analysis suggests, giving BP5 a credibility edge over markets that exaggerate volume.

Current status and reliability

At the time of writing, BP5 has been online for 42 consecutive days, an uptime streak that beats mirrors 1-4. DDoS protection is now handled by a commercial .onion anti-DDoS relay that filters Tor-circuit duplicates, which has cut downtime dramatically. Withdrawals are processed in batched cron jobs every 30 min; the longest delay I recorded was 2 h 11 min during a network-wide XMR spike. Search-and-filter latency occasionally jumps when the market exceeds ~2,500 concurrent users, but refreshing the circuit usually solves it.

Community chatter on dread lists two recurring pain points: (1) the 24 h vendor withdrawal lock occasionally traps new vendors who need quick cash flow, and (2) support can be slow on weekends. Otherwise, exit-scam speculation is remarkably low, perhaps because the market’s revenue-share model generates steady income without the temptation of a large central escrow wallet.

Conclusion and practical takeaway

Black Pyramid mirror #5 is not revolutionary; instead, it is an evolutionary refinement that borrows proven ideas—rotating mirrors, XMR-first payments, time-locked withdrawals—and packages them into a stable, mid-sized platform. For buyers, the biggest operational change is the disappearance of BTC multisig, meaning you must be comfortable with XMR wallet management. For vendors, the 24 h withdrawal delay is either a minor inconvenience or a welcome insurance policy, depending on cash-flow needs. Phishing risk remains the primary threat vector: always verify the PGP signature, never trust random “mirror” links in Jabber rooms, and keep your own backups of order addresses in case the site disappears tomorrow. In the current landscape of frequent exit scams and law-enforcement takedowns, BP5’s low-profile approach and modest scale may paradoxically be its strongest security feature.