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In this guide we explain everything you need to know in order to connect to the Archetyp darknet marketplace.

Launched in May 2020, Archetyp is a drugs-only darknet market that currently features about 1,300 listings in all. The market accepts a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, including Monero (XMR). The market supports both English and German language, and pricing amounts are default displayed in euros, which leads us to believe the market is most likely based out of Germany (or somewhere nearby). They also seem to support a lot of Swedish vendors, which renders it a suitable option for those in that country.

Regardless of their current predispositions, Archetyp is home to vendors from all major markets of the world, including the US, Canada, and Australia (among others). By its statistics, Archetyp has registered 355 vendors and 27,569 users as of the writing of this guide. That makes it one of the smaller markets currently out there, but they seem to be steadily expanding, driven by active development by its admins.

The recent closure of some major markets has seen some favorable migration toward Archetype, however, which is a good sign for things to come. On the flipside, however, this has incurred some unwanted attention. As a result, the market is now more often the subject of DDOS attacks by competitors, leading to slow page load times and frequent downtimes. Archetyp is vigilantly battling the problem but the lack of resources to pay for more sophisticated countermeasures is a problem suffered by all new up-and-coming markets worth their weight in salt.

We appreciate the fact that Archetyp employs a rather simple captcha system that involves clicking “broken circles”, as opposed to the usual and frustrating “guess what time the clock says”-type captcha. Perhaps the market can only get away with using simpler captcha systems because it is only of moderate size and notoriety – or maybe this new captcha system is simply better – but either way they definitely present the feel of a “next-gen” market in that they offer improvements based on the inefficiencies of other markets.

An immediate example of Archetyp’s innovation would be its ground-up site design, which is extremely user friendly, putting everything necessary to use the market within easy visibility. The checkout process has also been completely re-tooled from the standard market experience to reduce the introduction of errors when placing orders. We also appreciate that Archetyp uses a dark theme by default which makes browsing easy on the eyes.

One of the other cool things about Archetyp that no other market has is a Deadpool section where users come to bet on when various darknet markets will close, and under what circumstances. Its hard to say if this is sheer entertainment or may offer some conventional wisdom-type insight into the rationale behind market closures. This is one of the handful of “Games” offered by Archetyp in the self-labeled section of the website.

It’s the little features like this that show some extra dedication and thought is being put into the development of Archetyp, and as of December 2021, the market seems to be poised for some real growth next year. We appreciate their emphasis on OpSec maintenance and the fact that they make it so easy for everybody to use XMR without actually having to deposit any in the first place (you will certainly still want to obfuscate your non-XMR coins before sending them to Archetyp, however).

Basic Facts about Archetyp

• Archetyp Market Link: 4pt4axjgzmm4ibmxplfiuvopxzf775e5bqseyllafcecryfthdupjwyd.onion
• Year founded: 2020
• Cryptocurrencies accepted: Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE) Zcash (ZEC)
• Total Product/Service listings: 1,300
• Listing Categories: Cannabis, Stimulants, Ecstasy, Opiates, Benzodiazepines, Psychedelic, Prescriptions, Steroids, Dissociatives

• Multi-signature escrow? No
• Finalize Early? No
• Cost of vendor bond: N/A

Before Getting Started

Before attempting to use Archetyp or any darknet market, there’s a few technical subjects of which intermediate understanding is required by the user, which include the following:

• Sending and receiving cryptocurrency. You must know the fundamentals of crypto transactions, including what addresses are, how to send coins, how to set transaction fees, how to use a block explorer – and perhaps most importantly – how to store your coins safely and securely.
• The Tor browser. You must know how to connect to the Tor browser, which makes it possible to access hidden services sites like Archetyp. You should also know how to use Tor in such a way that maintains your privacy.
• OpSec. Short for Operations Security, OpSec (as it applies to the dark web) is the practice of revealing as little information about your real-life identity as possible when connected to the internet. This means things like never re-using usernames, never using usernames that could be associated to your identity, and never sending coins to Archetyp directly form an exchange (this is perhaps one of the biggest no-no’s).
• PGP. You will also need to know how to generate a new PGP key pair, how to locate your PGP public key, how to encrypt messages using the keys of others, and how to decrypt messages using your private key. This is also considered essential OpSec behavior.

Disclaimer: This guide is for research purposes only and should not be construed to be advice; legal or otherwise. The authors of this guide do not condone activities that are illegal in your jurisdiction or others. Use the contents of this guide and/or ToRReZ at your own risk.

Creating an Account

Registering an account on Archetyp is a relatively straight-forward process. After completing the simple captcha to reach the login landing page, scroll down until you see the “Create Account” button. Click it to begin the registration process. Next you will be brought to the account creation page. Here are following fields you will need to fill in the order they are presented:

• Display name. This is the name that will be shown to others after you are logged into the market.
• Login name. This is a private login name that you will enter along with your password when logging in to the market.
• Password. Can be 4-64 characters; we recommend at least 8 characters and a mixtures of letters, numbers, and special symbols (don’t use a password you have used before).
• Repeat password. Re-enter your newly-created password.
• PIN. Any combination of letters and/or numbers that is 4-16 characters. You will need to enter this when authorizing a withdrawal from Archetyp – its better to keep it around 6-8 characters so it can easily be memorized.

After filling these fields, click the cut circle toward the bottom (the captcha) to proceed. If all goes according to plan, you will now be brought to the Archetyp home page. Note there will be a banner at the top of the screen reminding you set your PGP public key before attempting to place any orders on the market.

Setting a PGP Key / 2-FA

To set your PGP public key on Archetyp, you’ll need to go to the “Settings” page. This can be accomplished by clicking the corresponding icon (to the left of the logout icon that looks like a power-off button), or by clicking the words “Visit settings” displayed in the light blue banner toward the top of the screen. Once you’ve reached the Settings page, scroll down until you see the PGP Public Key text box. This is where you will paste your public key so that other Archetyp users can communicate with you (most likely for vendor communications if you are a buyer). The screen should look something like this when your PGP key has been correctly pasted:

Click on the broken circle to resolve the captcha below the text box and be transported to the next screen. You will not be asked to decrypt a message that has been encrypted using your PGP key.

Copy the entire contents of the text box and decrypt them using your PGP utility (such as Kleopatra). Next, delete to contents in the text box and replace them with the decrypted message. It should look something like this when correctly entered:

After doing this, click on the broken circle to complete the captcha to continue. The PGP assignment system can be a bit finnicky at Archetyp, so if you receive an error message, simply repeat the process, starting with the re-pasting of the PGP public key (be sure to remove any existing, default text in the box before pasting your key).

If everything goes according to plan, your will be brought back to the Setting page, minus any warning banners, and are now free to begin browsing the market.

Making a Deposit

A particularly cool thing about Archetyp is that they support the deposit of 8 different cryptos, including BTC, BCH, DASH, DOGE, ETH, LTC, ZEC, and XMR. What’s interesting is that they will automatically convert all non-XMR deposits into XMR (via a changing service), which may result in some services charges to pay for fees associated with a cross-blockchain transfer (which are minimal). XMR deposits, on the other hand, accrue no charge, so we suggest you deposit using Monero whenever given the opportunity.

To access your market account wallet, click on the euro logo toward the right side of the top menu options. This will reveal your account balance in denominations of XMR and EUR. Below this is the Deposit section which displays the icons of coins supported by Archetyp. Click on the logo of the coin you wish to deposit. For the example of this guide, we will be using XMR. The deposit address for this coin can be found by clicking on the logo:

Alternatively, your XMR wallet address is also displayed to the right of your balances; beneath this is the QR code for the address if you wish to make a mobile payment. Note that after your XMR transaction has been confirmed by the Monero network, it will take approximately 30 minutes before your funds will be credited to your account and made available for use.

Browsing Archetyp

Archetyp is a drugs-only market, which is great if that’s what you’re looking for, because it means you don’t have to deal with the usual clutter caused by digital item listings that tend to find their way into erroneous categories. The marketplace UI is extremely well-done, making it quite easy to filter and sort items, narrowing down listings to a handful of the most relevant. Archetyp hosts around 1,000 listings in all, making it one of the smaller darknet markets currently in operation.

The categories (and subcategories) hosted on Archetyp include:

• Cannabis (Hash, Concentrates, Edibles, Seeds, Shake & Cuttings, Synthetic, Prerolled, e-Liquids, Buds & Flowers, Other)
• Stimulants (Cocaine, Crack, Speed, Meth, Adderall, Pills, Other)
• Ecstasy (MDA, Methylone, MDMA, Pills, Other)
• Opiates (Pills, Heroin, Opiate substitutes, Kratom)
• Benzodiazepines (Research chemicals, Pills, Powder, Other)
• Psychedelics (LSD, DMT, Mescaline, LSA, DMA, DO-x, nBome, 2C-X, Mushrooms, Other)
• Prescriptions (Vicodin, Simvastatin, Lisinopril, Levothyroxine, Azithromycin, Metformin, Lipitor, Amlodipine, Other)
• Steroids (Catabolic, Anabolic)
• Dissociatives (Ketamine, MXE, GHB, Other)

Because of the limited number of vendors on the market, some subcategories are sparse or even empty of entries. Some of the more popular categories (such as Cannabis) has a wealth of listings in their subcategories. For instance, Hash has 126 listings as of present, and Buds & Flowers has 200. You can pretty much find what you’re looking for by simply using the filter options to the left of the listing display. However, if you are too specific your filter will yield zero results. This will likely remain a problem until Archetyp manages to onboard a significant number of new vendors.

Clicking on a product listing will reveal the following information about it:

Here we can see the name of the product, its overall rating by customers (5/5 pills for this one), the quantity sold thus far (4), the originating location (Sweden), and the country or countries shipped to (Sweden only in this case). Below this you can see a box with the cost for an order of 1 item (58.30 EUR, or 0.3601 XMR). The XMR amount is the approximate price you can expect to pay upon checking out.

Scrolling down a bit we see more information relevant to the listing:

There are slider tabs revealing Product Details, Terms & Conditions, and Vendor Information. We recommend reading through all of these in order to get an idea of what to expect when placing an order with this vendor. It’s also a good idea to take a look at more specific info and stats about a vendor when ordering from them for the first time. You can do this by clicking on the Vendor Rating in the right panel. Note you can also see how long it takes for this product order to auto-finalize (14 days in this case).

Below this is information related to disputes, and below that are the most recent customer reviews of the product. As mentioned above, you’ll want to read what customers have to say about a vendor, their products, and their delivery service before placing an order with them for the first time.

Placing an Order

As far as placing an order on Archetyp is concerned, the process is pretty straight-forward, and there are no special features available as far as order options are concerned (such as BTC multisig, ‘Direct Pay’, or alternative escrow options).

All order payments are auto-finalized within 7-14 days, and this seems to be a replacement of the Finalize Early system. This can make it a bit difficult to dispute an order, and you must keep the order open when possible if it takes longer than 7-14 days to receive it. The thinking here is that all vendors should be competent enough to have an order delivered within 7 days of order placement, though this of course rarely matches what happens in reality.

Once you’ve found a product you wish to purchase, click on the “Buy product” button on the product’s listing page. Next, select the quantity of product you wish to purchase to advance to the next screen, which looks something like this:

Here you can see what your order will look like, and how much it will cost. Note that you must have at least the amount of XMR displayed in your balance to complete the purchase. You can adjust the quantity here by changing the number next to “time(s)” if necessary, and then choose the shipping option you desire. Scrolling down reveals the shipping info text box:

Archetyp makes it super simple to encrypt your shipping information with the vendor’s PGP key, so there is no reason not to do this. Simply click on the linked “(Vendor’s name here) PGP key” displayed immediately below the text box. Clicking on this link will bring up the vendor’s PGP key which can then be imported into your PGP utility (using the Certificate Import feature). Encrypt your shipping information using the vendor’s key and then paste the encrypted contents in the corresponding text box. We recommend always self-encrypting shipping info. It is easy to do so and there’s no reason not to do it.

Finally click the broken circle to complete the captcha to continue. Your order will now be submitted to the vendor who will begin preparing it for delivery, and the order payment will be deducted from your account balance. You can check back on the status of your order at any time. Vendors are encouraged to ship all accepted orders as quickly as possible, especially if their payments finalize in 7 days.

As we mentioned earlier, you might not have a lot of success disputing an order if you don’t receive it within the finalization window and it auto-finalizes, so be sure to continue staying in contact with the vendor and let the market know you haven’t received it, so funds aren’t finalized until the order is completed.

Most vendors know that reputation is everything when dealing on the darknet, and many will take the extra steps necessary to communicate with their buyer to make sure they have a positive experience, so give them the benefit of the doubt should a dispute arise and require some extra time to resolve. In short, patience goes a long way sometimes.

Archetyp Market Url: 4pt4axjgzmm4ibmxplfiuvopxzf775e5bqseyllafcecryfthdupjwyd.onion/

Conclusion

In all, Archetyp seems like a well-designed, almost revolutionary darknet marketplace in that they are recreating the experience from the ground up in some ways. In other ways, like their central account wallet system and lack of sophisticated payment options, they remain a bit antiquated. This means the potential for exit scam is higher at Archetyp than most others, which may explain the reason why their growth has been rather slow, and why many subcategories remain void of listings.

In short, unless you’re looking for weed, stimulants or psychedelics, you might be disappointed at the lack of selection Archetyp has to offer. For now, growth of the market seems to be slower than a lot of up-and-coming competitors, but the recent changes to Archetyp (such as the acceptance of a multitude of other cryptos and advanced finalization procedures) may help it gain more traction in the near future.

If for some reason you deem it necessary, Archetyp makes it quite easy to delete user accounts – a feature not necessarily common among darknet markets. Archetyp really does go out of their way to demonstrate commitment to the overall success of each user experience, which they realize is what ultimately will lead the market itself to long-term success