April 16, 2022
GLOBAL SITE UPDATES: * Private mirror system enabled: --- Go to /private_mirror which is also available on My Cabinet dropdown and you will be able to see if you have a mirror on there. --- As a buyer if you do not have one then you need to be more active on the platform, make more purchases etc. As a vendor get some orders completed first and then you will have automatically generated one. --- Sharing private links is strictly prohibited and if detected, warning points will be applied to those that do that. * Anti phishing system with both passive and active approach detects and prevents phishing attacks: --- Brand new and innovative way to detect phishing links with almost 100% accuracy. --- Accounts that meet certain criteria of being new will be asked per login to complete an anti-phishing captcha, that has our main addresses (1 onion and 1 I2P for now) embedded in it, if certain pages like homepage, wallet, pin, PGP are accessed. --- Already it has yielded serious results by stopping many phished users from getting their money withdrawn by phishers. The amount of phished tickets has also been drastically reduced. We will continue optimizing and perfecting the system in our fight against phishers. * Maximum session time changed from 1 to 6 hours. If you are inactive for more than 1 hour your session will end automatically * Auto-finalize timer for sent physical orders changed to 5 days (120 hours) * Vendors now have 3 days (72 hours) to accept an order or it will time-out * Dark theme for Asap now persists for 2FA enabled accounts (FIX) * Icons changed for ones that display with full security settings on Tor Browser (FIX) HOMEPAGE UPDATES: * Improved UI --- More streamlined layout allowing for easier and faster access and more information to be displayed --- We now display 8 random Sticky Listings and 8 random Top Listings (per requested) * Added security bar to promote adding PGP keys and further securing accounts in fight against malicious attackers such as phishers SEARCH UPDATES: * All continents were removed. If vendors want to hide your location simply put Worldwide and in description explain. If users search the continents in the From and To countries field, it will default to Worldwide. * European vendors if you want to specify Europe as region you ship to as a whole, you have to select it on your listing countries. Selecting the Europe option automatically adds all EU member states to give maximum reachability to potential customers. If you do not ship to a specific EU member state, unselect Europe option and the member state(s) that you do not wish to ship to. * Double United States and United Kingdom options removed. All listings have been automatically updated. * Search UI has been improved to display more information and better alignment. * !! IMPORTANT FOR VENDORS !! Search ordering changes have been made: --- If you are not as active regularly then your listing will score lower. Vendors now have 3 status - recently active within last 2 days (green circle), active within last 3-5 days (yellow circle), inactive for more than 5 days (gray circle). Since we do not store timestamp of when you login but only day, month and year, sometimes status may vary. Make sure you login regularly. --- If you enable the force PGP communication option your listing will appear significantly higher in the search. Please read the notes in the profile updates section below for more information. --- Asap is moving away from having multiple listings for the same product - e.g. a listing for 1 gr weed, a listing for 14 gr weed, a listing for 27 gr weed all from the same strain. The search gets clogged up this way and higher ranking vendors can abuse it as well. --- In regards to the point above, listings that have discounts will show up higher in the search by default. Vendors must calculate their discount percentages and apply them to the listings. E.g. you sell weed at 1 gr for 10 USD. If you want to sell 14 gr for 120 USD instead of 140 USD then the discount percentage is around 14%. So you put 14 to 20 with 14%. That will put if someone buys from 14 grams to 20 grams discount of 14% resulting in them paying 120 USD instead of 140 USD. --- We are giving 2 weeks gratis time to vendors to get their store/listings in order and only then we will enable the new search algorithm that concerns discount listings (PGP enforced search change live as you are reading this). After that time we will be removing excess listings that are flooding the search results. If you have many products that is fine list them but do not create listing for every few grams. If you have specific promo offers that is fine to have as well but do not abuse it. Vendors that do not comply will be receiving warning points. * New metric order time to order acceptance plays now a role in where your listing will be placed (more information in profile update section) VENDOR STORE UPDATES: * Improved UI * Pagination as it previously displayed all listings instead of page by page (FIX) PROFILE UPDATES: * Improved UI * Vendor descriptions * Force PGP communications option available for vendors: --- Requires buyer to add PGP key and enable 2FA. The option stops buyers from submitting cleartext address/information. --- Only PGP encrypted messages will be accepted on order notes and Private Messages communication. Buyers must have 2FA enabled before they make a purchase with you. --- We recommend enabling the option but do know your sales will be affected as not that many people know how to use PGP. However the quality of your sales and the buyers you are dealing with will increase so more stable and secure business. On top of that as incentive to vendors who chose to force PGP on all of their deals, all of your listings will rank significantly higher compared to those without this option. You have to make the decision for yourself based on the pros and cons. --- You may not have PGP enabled for specific listings and for others not. The feature is either enabled or it is disabled for your profile. --- Buyers and vendors that enable the feature will receive a boost in Trust Level which is the most important metric in ranking listings in categories and searches. * Order time to order acceptance --- New metric that takes use of the timestamp when the order is submitted and when the vendor has accepted it. --- As a vendor the faster you accept and ship an order the better that metric will be and so will your search result listing. LISTING UPDATES: * Improved UI --- Tabs are now responsive and you do not need to click each and load the page, they are all loaded in one go. --- Added Quantity: on top of the field for amount. Added extra table column in discounts to give to buyer specific prices e.g. you discount weed from 14 to 20 grams with 14% and the buyer will now also see the calculated price e.g. 120 USD for 14 grams. * Extra options/shipping options now affect the autofinalization timer: --- If you have a physical listing and you put as the shipping option 24 hours, this mean the autofinalization timer will be 5 days + 24 hours = 6 days. The autofinalization time for physical listings stands at 5 days but anything on top based on your shipping/extra options will extend the timer. The approach improves the experience for international orders. --- If you have a digital listing and you put as the shipping option 24 hours, this mean the autofinalization timer will be 2 days + 24 hours = 3 days. The autofinalization time for digital listings still stands at 2 days but anything on top based on your shipping/extra options will extend the timer. The approach improves the experience for orders that might take longer to fulfill e.g. creating and verifying an account that might take a week but the product is still classified as digital. * Listings can now have units of measurement. Default is pc/pcs (piece/pieces). --- For vendors this can be applied for all listings at once or per each listing individually. Both options are available when you edit discount options for one listing, there is button to apply it to all other listings instantly. * Listing feedbacks now shows day, month and year of feedback as well as order price shown as a range to not disclose the exact price for security reasons. Feedback from buyers now also specifies their Trust Level so potential buyers can make their decision more easily. Previously vendor replies to their feedback was not showing up, that has been fixed. * Sticky listings now have chance to show on the front page for more exposure ORDER UPDATES: * Improved UI and additional helpful text. * Added visible PGP keys for both buyer and vendor on the order page. * Added auto finalization timer available to buyers and vendors. * Added standalone button function to extend autofinalization timer without disputing an order as that seems to have confused vendors and users alike. * Buyers can now leave feedback only within 7 days after finalizing the order. * Orders will now need to be accepted within 3 days otherwise they will be marked as Timed-out * Vendors who leave too many orders to time out will see their order accept time drop significantly and subsequently their listing rankings. If you can not ship an order refuse it. * Autofinalize timer is now 5 days by default instead of 7 for physical items PRIVATE MESSAGING UPDATES: * Upgraded to support PGP enforced communication. * Misc characters like apostrophes are now converted for easy look. Applies to listing descriptions, PMs and support tickets. WALLET UPDATES: * AlphaGuard has been upgraded --- Ability to support Direct Pay (pay per order). You can now pay for your order without needing to send to the market wallet system all while benefiting from AlphaGuard protection. ----- Only one deposit per address per order, sending a second time will result in your coins lost. You must send within 6 hours or the order will be auto-cancelled. ----- If you overpay, underpay or cancel a Direct Pay order the balance will be credited to your market balance. Refund addresses are not supported due to how AlphaGuard works and having the same address for all refunds is not recommended from an opsec perspective. ----- If an order times-out (vendor failed to accept in time) it will be credited to your market balance. If you receive a refund of any size from a dispute it will be credited to your market balance. ----- To use Direct Pay your total order amount must be more than 0.02 XMR. If it is less Direct Pay will not be available for that order during checkout. The restriction is for security, optimization and cost-per-computational-resource purposes. ----- Direct Pay is not available for autodispatch listings. Reasoning being someone might purchase the items during the time your deposit is being confirmed and you would receive nothing, which would create disputes, support tickets etc. cc buyers are no stranger to loading a balance before making a purchase so we find our approach adequate and traditional. Same applies for purchasing from the CC/data autoshop itself. --- Changes to how withdraw works - you suggested, we listened. From now on there will be no calculation of 1% that you will need to do as AlphaGuard has been improved. We now assume per design all Monero fees will be covered by itself. The downside is withdraw fee is increased from 0.15% to 0.25% so we can be 100% sure AlphaGuard can cover transactions internally. The withdraw fee will now be removed from the amount you are withdrawing instead of your 1% balance so if you withdraw 10 XMR you will receive 9.75 XMR but you will be able to fully withdraw the balance (zero it) from your market wallet. --- All upgrades were first thoroughly tested with a test version of AlphaGuard before being deployed. Upgrades have been confirmed to be working for several weeks before this announcement. --- Increased rate limits for firewall for individual AlphaGuard nodes so that we can send requests without any issues (previously resulted in blank pages during very high user peak time). MISC: * Since we have been in operation for more than 8 months (and are already the top XMR-only marketplace), we have decided that an increase to the vendor bond is in order from 1 XMR to 1.5 XMR. Minimum bidding price has been changed from 0.25 XMR to 0.3125 XMR to reflect the growth of the marketplace and average bidding price which is times over that number. Sticky listings are also increased from 1 XMR to 1.25 XMR. A lot more updates are coming this month as we enter testing stages for each one. Stay tuned. Thank you.