Russian-language darknet: the masks have been dropped, the war continues

Everything secret sooner or later becomes clear, and the big war in the Russian-language darknet was no exception to this rule.

Let us remind those who did not follow the situation from the very beginning how events unfolded. On April 5, 2022, as a result of an unprecedented interference, the Hydra website, a monopolist in the provision of goods and services of the PAV segment, collapsed.

The power of the three-headed site seemed huge and unshakable to buyers and market players, and for two weeks the site’s clients and partners believed that the difficulties of the famous resource were temporary, it was about to rise, return deposits, deposits and working capital to customers and resume trading.

But the tragic pause dragged on, mini-platforms and Telegram channels began to feverishly trade with happiness, and when the spontaneous fuss subsided a little, everyone saw that the great industry now had two leaders.

One of them was a team that, not without reason, proclaimed itself the successor of the Trekhgolova. No one could object to these players, if not for one circumstance. In the early days of the panic caused by the collapse of the monopolist of treasures and related services, almost half of the buyers shied towards the good old RuTor resource, showering it with a sudden and unexpected golden rain.

This detail would have remained a fun episode if the heirs of Hydra immediately called RuTor to order and network good neighborliness. But they hesitated, and a spontaneous share was bought out by a new structure in the industry, which wished to remain anonymous.

Claims of the “newcomer” to the market of the deceased Hydra were initially absolute. At first, however, their inheritance rights were questioned, as the owners of the RuTor site avoided communication, and what happened seemed too incredible to be true.

However, everything was put in its place by verified information that the patriarch of the industry Raccoon really sold his golden fortune to the applicants for 2.6 million dollars, preferring real money to a protracted and futile conflict with the “legal heirs”.

Thus, the players, who considered themselves the sole owners of the collapsed empire of happiness, realized that they were in a situation of direct competition, and their opponent was clearly serious. The “Incognito team” had grounds for perseverance. They bought from RuTor the share of the market that fell on him, observing all the rules and norms of the game, this share was monstrously large and gave the right to claim a monopoly.

From that moment on, the Russian-speaking “surfactant segment” in the darknet had two owners who claimed leadership and a monopoly, and such situations in the fields of this industry cannot end in anything but a big conflict.

Large-scale actions followed, which cannot be called otherwise than a war. The “successors” launched a clone of the WayWay site with the name WayAway that betrayed their intention and invested in selecting the mass consumer audience of the RuTor site sold to an unknown person in its favor.

The “newbies” resisted, demonstrating that they have enough experience and resources to fight people whose claims to a monopoly are limited by their personal sense of involvement in the industry giant killed by the security forces of real life.

At the same time, suspicions naturally arose that behind the confident movements of the blue team were not amateurs with ambitions, but a much more experienced participant in the process who knew the laws by which the market works and drew conclusions from his past mistakes.

This conclusion was supported by the grip with which the unknown bought half of the market from the RuTor site, the long silence of the experienced old Raccoon, and also by the fact that the impetuous applicants were able to lure away such patriarchs of the darknet process as John and WDC administrators.

Who is hiding behind the mask of the applicant, everyone was guessing, buyers, entrepreneurs and even casual observers of the process. They talked about the involvement of Khimprom, OMG and other reputable players, argued and gave their arguments in favor of one or another assumption.

Meanwhile, the parties exchanged such powerful blows that it became clear that the opponents were equal in all respects in the arena. The media assigned them military headquarters colors and began to observe and comment on the battle of the Red Giants with the Blue Giants, who are in no way inferior to them.

And now the masks are off. For some reason, the OMG resource decided to no longer hide its intention to take over the legacy of the collapsed Three-Headed Site. Why he named himself is as incomprehensible as why he previously concealed his participation in the conflict. Given the scale and uncompromising nature of the fight on the dark web, there is no doubt that the player had good reasons for both the first and second actions, but they are not known to us.

It’s time to admit that we found out who is hiding under the name Blue, much earlier than everyone else, but we kept this information so as not to upset the balance of power in the confrontation and not make ourselves a powerful enemy.

Now the names of both competitors are not our exclusive inside information, but public information, which did not affect either the course of the war or the half-balance of the market for surfactant hoards. The situation remains stable and tense, and the aggressive equality of the parties suggests that the conflict may be long.

At first, it seemed that OMG’s exit from the shadows would give Hydra’s heirs some preferences, but this was a subconscious feeling, devoid of meaning and weight. For that matter, the recent “Reds” are inferior to their opponents in a number of objective positions.

Firstly, online and real are two sides of the same life coin, and in this sense, you cannot envy the successors of the hydra cause. The collapse of their predecessors led to an unprecedented cruel breakdown of dozens of human destinies in one of the post-Soviet countries. It is cruel and unfair to blame them directly for this, but according to all earthly laws, the successors receive not only trump cards in their sleeve, but also a load of mistakes and failures of the people whose bins they inherit.

Secondly, the “Reds” have already made a mistake, delaying the purchase of RuTor’s share and allowing their enemies to remain incognito for more than a month. What makes them think that the games are over, and the ears and fists of Khimprom or another participant in the process, full of plans, ambitions and fighting enthusiasm, suddenly do not peek out from behind the OMG players?

Hydra’s heirs should not underestimate their enemy. Those who start games of this type and level do not do it in order to lose.