Drughub Mirror-2: A Privacy-Centric Look at the Market’s Second Onion Reflection

Drughub Mirror-2 is the presently most stable .onion reflection of the long-running Drughub marketplace. While the primary domain has cycled through several seizures and DDoS waves since 2021, the “Mirror-2” instance has become the de-facto landing page for both veteran buyers and new accounts who verify PGP-signed link bundles posted by senior staff. From a research standpoint it is interesting because it keeps the original codebase (a lightly modified version of the Eckmar script) but routes all backend wallets through a self-hosted Monero node, something few mid-sized bazaars still do.

Background and Brief History

Drughub itself appeared in late 2020, shortly after the Empire exit-scam chatter peaked. Its first public relation move was to publish a signed wallet address that controlled change from early block-height 664800—an auditable, if nerdy, proof-of-reserves that earned quick credibility. By mid-2021 the site was hovering around 4,500 drug listings and had recruited several former White House Market vendors. Seizure notices hit the main URL in October 2022, but within six hours staff activated three signed mirrors, the second of which (the topic of this article) has remained online—minus a handful of 24-hour gaps—for eighteen consecutive months. That kind of uptime, while not unprecedented, is enough to place Drughub Mirror-2 among the top five most reliable narcotics-focused markets today.

Core Features and Functionality

The interface will feel familiar if you have used DarkMarket, Tor2Door or any Eckmar derivative: left-column categories, central listings grid, and a right-panel shopping cart. Beneath that boilerplate skin, however, the admins have bolted on a few pragmatic extras:

• Per-order stealth photos: vendors can upload up to three images visible only to buyer and staff once an order is marked shipped—useful for checking visual decoy quality without leaking OPSEC on the public feed.
• XMR auto-sweep timer: user deposits are moved from the hot wallet to an offline view-only wallet after 36 h, shrinking the window for hot-wallet theft.
• JSON export of purchase history with PGP-signed checksum, simplifying bookkeeping for bulk buyers who track spend across markets.
• Built-in “mirror validator”: a client-side script hashes the current .onion and compares it against a hard-coded list; if the string doesn’t match the official set, the page background turns red—an effective, if simple, phishing alarm.

Search filters are granular: you can narrow by country-origin, escrow type (full, partial, or none), and shipping stealth rating. One personal pet peeve—the “finalize early” filter still shows listings that merely mention FE in the body text, so double-check the order form before payment.

Security and Escrow Model

Drughub Mirror-2 runs 2-of-3 multisig for Bitcoin, but the implementation is lopsided: the market holds one key, the buyer gets one, and the third sits on the server encrypted with the vendor’s PGP public key. In practice most buyers never co-sign; they simply let the market release funds after the auto-finalize window (14 days domestic, 21 days international). Monero orders are straight escrow—funds stay in a 2-of-2 wallet controlled by staff plus vendor, released when the buyer clicks “received”. Disputes are handled in a cleartext ticket system that is, frankly, sub-optimal; both parties upload evidence and a lone admin decides. From a privacy angle, avoid uploading tracking screenshots that expose postmark metadata—strip EXIF and mask barcodes first.

Phishing resistance relies on three pieces: the mirror validator script mentioned earlier, a mandatory six-digit PIN for fund withdrawals, and a per-user PGP 2FA login challenge. The last item is worth enabling even if it adds ten seconds each sign-in; stolen cookie sessions are useless without the corresponding private key.

User Experience Observations

Page load times hover around 3–4 s over a standard Tor circuit, respectable for a site pulling 600-900 concurrent users. The CSS is lightweight, so even with safer JavaScript settings you won’t break core functionality. One usability plus: the order-status timeline is color-coded—green for shipped, amber for “in transit”, red for disputed—so a quick glance at your dashboard tells you what needs attention. On the downside, the wallet interface still displays balances in BTC even if you deposit XMR; the conversion uses a 24 h weighted average rather than live spot, occasionally causing mild confusion when price swings.

Reputation, Trust and Community Sentiment

Dread forum threads from the past half-year show a 78 % “trust-positive” rating according to the DreadTrust bot, placing Drughub Mirror-2 ahead of ASAP but behind Archetyp. Vendor bond sits at $750 (reducible to $450 after 50 sales with <1 % dispute ratio), high enough to deter casual scammers yet not so steep that quality small-scale sellers balk. The “Top Rated” badge requires 90+ sales, 4.8/5 average, and at least six months tenure—stricter than most competitors. One persistent complaint: a few powerhouse vendors require FE for all international shipments, and staff rarely intervene unless the vendor disappears outright. Check recent feedback timestamps; if you see a cluster of “FE will update” messages within 48 h, treat it as a red flag.

Present Reliability and Concerns

As of this month Mirror-2 has had three short-lived outages—two from documented DDoS and one unexplained 12-hour pause. Staff blamed the latter on “chain indexing issues”, plausible given the self-hosted Monero node. Wallet health is transparent: the hot wallet rarely tops 0.8 XMR, and the BTC multisig custody address shows <2 coin balance, limiting exit-scam payoff and therefore temptation. Nevertheless, the market’s central escrow model still means you must trust someone; if that is unacceptable, limit purchases to multisig-capable listings and actually verify the redeem scripts before sending coin.

Conclusion

Drughub Mirror-2 delivers a middle-ground experience: not as design-polished as Incognito, not as ideologically decentralized as DarkBay’s true 2-of-3, but stable, Monero-friendly, and staffed by admins who at least sign their announcements. For buyers who value a long uptime track record and straightforward search tools, the mirror is serviceable—provided you enable PGP 2FA, verify signed links, and never leave excess coin in the site wallet. For vendors, the reduced bond after 50 sales is attractive, yet the mandatory FE pressure from top sellers shows the escrow policy still has gaps. Treat it like any centralized hot-wallet service: useful, convenient, and best handled with strict time-in-funds limits and a healthy dose of cynicism.