Tutorial: How To Buy From the Zion Market?

Today, we’re going to teach you how to buy from the Zion market. This is a fairly new market with a low range of products. However, Zion shows promise in its features and security! Users can choose between a 2 out of 2 or 3 multisignature, meaning that escrow can be managed by the market and vendor or by the three: market, vendor, and you. This means that the market is never in control of your funds. Zion market has no built-in wallets or balances, so every order will require you to make a transaction.

Zion allows 2-fa with PGP and has an amazingly useful security feature, the “Emergency Destruction Password”. It’s a sort of self-destruct button that allows you to erase all evidence on the Zion market quickly. It can be used as a decoy for L.E or to quickly erase your account when you don’t want to use it any more.

Zion is easy to use and secure. Exit scams by the market are not possible (unless if the market collaborates with the seller to do so). Zion also protects your privacy by allowing Monero payments that are instantly converted to BTC.

Part 1 – Protect your privacy

Step 1: In order to access any darknet market, you’ll need Tor Browser. TOR allows you to conceal your location by redirecting Internet traffic through a network of nodes. Click here to go to the Tor Browser download page and download the version that best suits your O.S.

Step 2: Although the Tor Browser conceal your location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis, your Internet Service Provider will be aware that you’re using the Tor. To ensure maximum security, you can install a quality VPN. You can find a list of VPN providers here. There are a lot of free VPNs, but remember that they are probably worth what you pay for them: Nothing. So do your research and choose a VPN that is good and cost-efficient.

“When using a VPN Service it will hide your identity and location while also encrypting all of you internet traffic from everyone including your internet service provider. This technology will also protect you from identity theft and hacking when using free wifi because everything is encrypted.”

Step 3: In order to communicate on the deepweb markets, it’s advisable that you use PGP encryption. This ensures that in case the market is shut down by LE, your conversations will not be read and your address will not be revealed. One thought to keep in mind is that not all versions of GPG are created equally, so avoid using online GPG methods such as iGolder and those utilizing BouncyCastle libraries. PGP will also be used to activate 2-factor authentication.

This site has basic guides covering GPG for each main OS. Linux, OS X, and Windows. Linux is the better choice, obviously; however, you will be fine ordering personal goods on both OS X and Windows.

Part 2 – Create and fund a Bitcoin wallet

Step 1: Click here to download the Electrum wallet. Download the version that best fits your O.S

Step 2: Install the setup and create a new Standard wallet.

Step 3: Go to “Addresses” and use one of the addresses there to receive your Bitcoin with. It’s advisable that you use one address per transaction.

Now that you have created a Bitcoin wallet, you can fund it. Bitcoin can be acquired on an exchange like Kraken or Bitstamp, but these require you to reveal your identity to a third party. You can also buy Bitcoins with cash or cash by mail using LocalBitcoins or Paxful. This ensures a higher degree of privacy. Bitsquare is also an option.

It is also advisable that you use a Mixer when funding your account. Bitcoin Blender (onion address) has been around for quite some time and it is one of the most used mixers.

Now that your wallet is funded with clean Bitcoins, it’s time to create an account on the market.

Part 3 – Create an account with Zion

Step 1: Click here to get the sign up link for Zion. Make sure to use a username and password you don’t use anywhere else (including other markets) to ensure that it can never be traced back to you. Click “Register”

You will be logged into the market automatically.

Part 4 – Configure your Zion settings and PGP

Step 1: Click “Yourusername” to go to the settings page

You can now set your location, region and currency if you want. However, we’re going to skip to the PGP.

Step 2: Enter your Public PGP key

Step 3: Choose “Enabled” on the two-factor authentication field. This will require you to decode a PGP-encrypted message with your private key every time you log in.

You can also set a Bitmessage address, which will allow you to receive notifications with a preferred predetermined frequency:

“If a Bitmessage address is on file we will send updates (new purchases, messages, claims) in real time or a batch at the end of the day with a PGP-encrypted backup of your signed multisig transactions.”

An extremely interesting and useful feature introduced by the Zion market is the ability to add a “self-destroy” password. When this special password is entered, your account will be destroyed. This is called the Emergency Destruction Password. If you deem this necessary (since it’s a good protection/decoy against L.E) you can enter a special password and choose the information that is to be destroyed if the password is entered:

Step 4: Once your settings are defined, click “Update”

You may have noticed the “Bitcoin public key(s) for multisig transactions” and “Personal Bitcoin wallet address for affiliate payments“ fields. These are a bit more complicated, so we’re going to do these in the 5th part, below

Part 5: Setting up your Wallet info

This is an optional step. While still on the Settings page, scroll up to the “Personal Bitcoin wallet address for affiliate payments“ field. You can enter your Bitcoin address here. If you don’t have one, create one with Electrum as shown above or using coinb.in.

You can get the referral link from the “Affiliates” page:

To purchase from the Zion market, you’ll need to use multi-signature as an escrow. You can either use a 2-out-of-2 system with the market and vendor, your you can protect yourself with 2-out-of3 multisig. To do so, follow the steps below

If you’re familiar with Electrum, you can use it to sign multisignature transactions. Just choose one of the addresses created to sign the multisig transactions. If you don’t want to install/use Electrum, you can always use Coinb.in to easily create a wallet and use it for Zion Market.

Step 1: Click here to go to coinb.in

Step 2: Click “New” (1) and then “New Address” (2)

Step 3: Now click “Generate” to create an address

Step 4: Save your address and keys (public and private) in a safe place. Don’t lose any of the keys. (Click “Show” to see your private key)

Step 5: Now copy the public key and paste on the “Bitcoin public key(s) for multisig transactions”

Step 6: Click “Update”

You will need your public key to generate a trade-address when creating a Multisig transaction and your private key to sign a transaction if necessary. (Never share your private key!). We will show you how to do this later on. Now it’s time to do some shopping.

Part 6: Searching for an item

Step 1: You can search for items using the Search tool (1) or by browsing the categories (2). When you use the search tool, you can narrow down your search by choosing the categories.

You can also use the advanced search by scrolling down:

Step 2: In this case, we want to read a book on Fingerprint forging, so we’ll search for “LSD”

Step 3: Now we’ll change the Category to “Digital Items”

You can sort your search by country, region, avg. delivery time, minimum feedback and more. You can also choose to sort by various parameters.

Step 3: Click “Update Search”

Step 4: Now browse through the items until you find one that best fits your needs. We’re going with the “How To Make LSD” book.

Part 7: Check your vendor’s feedback

Once you’ve chosen an item, you’ll want to check the seller’s reputation by clicking his profile and checking the number of positive feedbacks, number of orders and Feedback history on other markets. Some users will have a “Trusted member” badge which means they are active in other markets.

Step 1: Click the seller’s name

Step 2: Examine the seller’s account. Although our particular seller is brand new, he’s the only one selling the book we want, so we’ll settle. Most vendors are new, since the market itself is also new. However, you’ll want to keep an eye on the things we mentioned above: the number of positive feedbacks, number of orders and Feedback history on other markets.

Part 8: Make a purchase

Step 1: Go back to the Listing and choose your item.

Step 2: Once on the item page, you’ll be shown the description and details on price and shipping methods. Since this is a digital item, you won’t have shipping options.

When buying a real-world item, you’ll have the shipping options as so:

Step 3: To buy the item click “Buy!”

Step 3: You will now be shown a Bitcoin address. This is a multi-signature address controlled by you, the market and the vendor. Send the BTC price to the address shown

You can click “Check BTC deposit” to check the status of the deposit:

You can also pay with Monero by clicking the “Pay with Monero” button. The XMR will be converted to Bitcoin and sent to the address:

Since this is a digital item, it won’t be necessary to send a message to the vendor. However, with a physical item you’ll need to scroll down and send your address and any other notes that are relevant to the purchase:

Step 4: Once the payment is received, you will be shown the multisig escrow details:

You’ll now have to wait for the vendor to send the item through the mail or through a download link (if the item is digital)

Step 5: Now that you have received your item, you’ll need to sign the transaction that will release the payment for the merchant. This will be shown in the multisig escrow details below the “Contact” field.

Step 6: Copy the raw transaction and go to coinb.in (you can also use Electrum)

Step 7: Once in Coinb.in, click “Sign”

Step 8: Enter your private key (1) and the raw transaction you just copied from Zion (2)

Step 9: Click “Sign”. Your transaction will be signed

Step 10: Now copy the signed transaction

Step 11: Click “Broadcast”

Step 12: Paste the signed transaction and click “Broadcast”

The transaction will be broadcast and the vendor will receive his payment. If the item is not as described or not received, you can always Open a claim or Request a refund in the order page as seen below:

And that’s it. You can now buy from the Zion Market easily! Remember that this is a fairly new market and there are not many vendors there. The ones that are active are new, so proceed with caution. If you have any questions check out the help page (http://zionshopusn6nopy.onion/help).