I've been watching the Marketplace section and the pattern literally never changes. Not only on this forum.
Every few weeks a new thread pops up:
- flashy website
- Panama / Seychelles / Russia / British Anguilla flag
- 100% DMCA ignored abuse ignored, bulletproof, crypto only no KYC
Then 1-3 months later the same customers come back crying in another thread: “host ignored my tickets, server suspended after one abuse mail, money gone”
So let's break down exactly why almost everything you see advertised here in the bulletproof/offshore category is fake - or at best a reseller that will fold instantly.
1. The “exotic location“ is almost always a lie
They don't own racks in Panama, Seychelles or Vanuatu. Those places have maybe 2-3 small local ISPs total and zero cheap colocation.
What they do instead:
- rent normal European servers (Hetzner, OVH, Leaseweb, NFOrce, M247, WorldStream, etc.)
- put Cloudflare in front + GeoIP spoofing on their website
- fake the check-host.net / ip2location results with EDNS client-subnet tricks
Reality check takes 15 seconds:
Put the IP they give you into
https://bgp.tools or
https://bgp.he.netYou will see origin ASN is 99.9% of the time European.
Common ones:
- AS24940 - Hetzner (Germany / Finland)
- AS16276 - OVH (France / Canada / Singapore, but mostly Europe)
- AS9009 - M247 (Romania + everywhere)
- AS204957 - NFOrce (Netherlands)
- AS43350 - Etherbase / DCpark (Netherlands)
If you see any of these - it's Europe, period. No amount of “our node is virtually in Panama“ changes physics.
Real offshore prefixes you will basically never see from forum advertisers:
- AS52228 - Seychelles
- AS196743 - Panama
- AS198781 - British Virgin Islands etc.
2. “DMCA ignored“ promise is worthless when you're a resellerIf the hardware is in Netherlands, Germany, France, Lithuania, Romania, etc. - the datacenter has to obey local law.
One single valid DMCA or European equivalent - datacenter suspends the machine - your 'bulletproof' host has zero power and just forwards you the abuse ticket.
Even the 'big famous' names that everyone thinks are legit do exactly this. They're just bigger resellers with better marketing.
3. Real bulletproof / offshore looks completely different- 5-20× more expensive
- no flashy website with anime girls and discount coupons
- no marketplace threads with 'limited 10 slots hurry up'
- they own their own metal and ASN in places that actually ignore Western requests
4. Questions that instantly filter out 99% of the fakesAsk these in the sales chat. If they dodge or give bullshit answers - run.
1. What exact ASN will announce the IP I get?
2. Can you show me the current ROA in RPKI for that prefix?
3. Where exactly is the physical rack located (country + datacenter name)?
4. Are you the direct owner of the hardware or do you resell someone else?
5. Do you perform RPKI validation and strict prefix filtering on your routers?
If the guy answers “bro trust me we are 100% offshore“instead of giving straight answers - close the chat.
5. Tools you should use to check your server-
https://bgp.tools-
https://bgp.he.net-
https://radar.cloudflare.com/scan- looking glasses (HE, Cloudflare, Level3, etc.) + traceroute
- criminalip.io / shodan.io
- ipinfo.io / abuseipdb.com
If every traceroute ends in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Bucharest or Vilnius - it's Europe. No magic.
6. Summary & TL;DREverything cheap, loud and heavily advertised on Bitcointalk in the “bulletproof/offshore“ category is either:
a) straight scam (take money and disappear)
b) European reseller that will fold the second they get an abuse mail from Hetzner/OVH/Leaseweb/etc.
Real providers that can actually ignore Western law are expensive, quiet and...
Do 10 minutes of BGP homework or keep learning the same lesson every few months when your “bulletproof“ server disappears overnight.
I'm genuinely curious - can anyone here name even ONE marketplace advertiser (active right now) that announces their own legit non-European prefix and costs less than $100-150/month for a decent dedi?
I’d be happy to hear your thoughts as well! If anyone has any insights or information they believe could be valuable, please feel free to share it in the comments!.
