Price formation of illicit drugs on dark web marketplaces

A large portion of the internet or world wide web is not indexed by search machines, this is called the deep web. A smaller portion of this deep web, only accessible using anonymization software (e.g. Tor), is called the dark web. Websites in the deep- and dark-web can only be directly accessed through their URL. The dark web is used for various pursuits, both legal - such as human rights activism - as illegal. The latter being the most prevalent, with content such as child pornography or the sharing of malicious services such as DDoS-tools. The focus of this research will be on another - and perhaps the most prevalent - part of the illegal activities on the dark web, namely drug trafficking. In this research, the dark web's illicit drug markets and their `offline' counterparts will be compared. Specific differences between `offline' and `online' markets will be investigated and summarized along with other benefits and services the dark web might offer, next to this a price comparison will be made to finally examine whether these possible factors alter the price formation.