1: A Modern-day History of Cryptomarkets

This chapter aims to detail the historical trajectory of the cryptomarket. To do so necessitates some reflection on the correct choice of words and the framing that is implicit to sketching out such a history. Should we consider the cryptomarket a radical re-organisation of the online drug trade? Should we see it as the fulfilment of crypto-anarchist prophecies of the inevitability of black markets online? Or should we merely consider it another iteration of a social practice, the trade of illicit goods online, which dates back to the first days of the internet. This is a matter of perspective, and this chapter remains cautious, leaving it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. This cautious approach sees the cryptomarket, paraphrasing its original designer and implementer, as the putting together of pieces that already existed. Thus, we propose that this was neither an inevitable outcome nor that the cryptomarket emerged from a social and political vacuum.