I am not surprised by this at all -- deep web doesn't offer people an ultimate form of privacy, they should know that by now. I am actually surprised by the stupidity of the people behind the scenes compiling all this news. Bitcoin was pointed at (on tv) as being an illegal underground currency.... I thought we were already over that, no? On first sight it may look like bad news for people, but these situations are a 'golden' opportunity for those looking to benefit from the gap these large market places have left behind. New markets will pop up like there is no tomorrow, all in the hope to offer these wandering users a new home.

Bad news for people affected, that's for sure, but with that part of my post I meant that it isn't necessarily bad news for those looking to set up their own marketplace. It's a huge gap these 2 marketplaces left behind. Something will be popping up making people forget about these dropped markets, and the one with the best alternative will make himself a very decent amount of money. Other than that, people are responsible for their own actions. If they store whatever crypto currency on a platform with relatively higher overall risks (e.g. hacks, insider theft, market getting seized), they have to accept this potential outcome.

Actually, almost nothing can be private nowadays. The very technology that we can use to go private can be counteracted by another technology to peel the security layers even abruptly. This is going to be technology versus technology but since we are dealing with the power of the government they can always have their way...especially on the areas of illegal business like trading drugs and guns.

This will not be the last on this story as there will always be people brave and enterprising enough to start new market for the dark web. And the news of imprisonment for someone who started his dark web business will not stop anyone to fill the gap. This is just like watching the Tom & Jerry show...but who is the cat and who is the mouse?

I thought Hansa stopped accepting new arrivals when AB closed down.  That's why loads of new-ish accounts were being sold at high prices, because of AB "refugees" being desperate to get on Hansa.  They were attempting to move to Hansa, anyway.

Bitcoin can be alright if you use it properly.  I don't know about Hansa but on Alpha Bay there was wallets for BTC, ETH, XMR and Zcash. 

Still, vendors could choose what they accept of course.  Most just took BTC.

This once again proves that dark net markets don't have a viable long term existence right. It may take some time, but eventually they all go down for whatever reason. I must point out that a lot people on reddit are more or less looking at dark net markets from that point of view as well. In most cases they are quite easily accepting their loss, from where they then move to the next most popular market - that's what I call being realistic.

The fact that they took control of the whole Hansa marketplace and kept it going for a month is crazy.

In the past i looked at the Darkweb market places as some-kind of fortresses for illegal goodies but now I am realising what the situation realy is.

On slightly different note, it is completely useless exercise as same as great war on drugs. ( I am not a passionate drug user just see war as irrational approach to problem)

Nothing positive is going to come out of these closures. If one dark market is shut down, then another one will come in to existence. When Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded were shut down, Sheep Market Place and Silk Road 2.0 came in to existence. Alphabay came in to the picture when these two dark markets were removed from the scene.

Yes, in a glowing story it was revealed that Hansa is actually a trap and got operated by no less than the police with buyers and sellers having no hint of what is happening. One thing that I realized is that eventually illegal marketplaces and operators would one day sooner or later fall into the hands of the law.