The habits that keep a shop running
Most vendors who disappear were not caught by anything exotic. They reused a name, kept a balance on the market, or answered a message they should have ignored.
Separate everything
The vendor name exists only for this. Not a handle from a forum, not a variation of a name used elsewhere, not something a search engine can connect to anything you have ever posted. Reuse is the single most common thread in vendors who are found, and it costs nothing to avoid at the start and everything to fix later.
Keys are the identity
Generate a PGP key you control and keep it offline where practical. Sign what matters, verify what arrives, and never paste a private key into a web form for any reason. The key is what lets buyers know a message is from you and what lets you prove continuity if you ever move. Losing it costs the history it anchors.
Balances stay small
Withdraw on a schedule rather than when the balance feels large. Money on a market is exposed to the market having a bad week, and vendors who lose funds in a market exit are almost always the ones who had left a working balance sitting there for convenience.
Discipline that costs nothing
- A username, password and key used for this and nothing else
- PGP two factor on the account from the first day
- Recovery phrase on paper, never typed into a page
- Address verified on the login screen every session
- No order details discussed anywhere except the market message system
- Regular withdrawals rather than a standing balance
Communication discipline
Keep everything about orders inside the market messaging where it is encrypted and where a dispute can reference it. Moving a conversation to an outside channel because it is faster removes the record you would need if that order goes wrong, and it is a standard opening move for anyone trying to work around escrow.
Assume the outage is normal
Mirrors go quiet under load. That is routine and not a reason to go looking for a new address in a search engine, which is exactly how sellers hand credentials to a clone. Keep the verified addresses bookmarked, wait, and use the alternatives listed here.
nexusb2l7fmqnefwphyy7m5zjhlkytlbo7qbb5lu5dlczr3azgii2gyd.onionnexusma2iekjhhyenua3u4zlyfsj2ubwxr2nt6gdte5rvwukzze63fyd.onionnexusabcdrstn74osnr67fsbzbo44kjpxqbbz5ymcwhlxjg6dloyhoyd.onionOpen these in Tor Browser only. Before your password, read the onion on the login screen back against your address bar. If they do not match, close the tab. A vendor account created on a clone is a vendor account handed to somebody else.