Nexus Market Notes
Short notes, one small idea per note, four hundred words or less.
What a note is
One small idea, stated plainly, short enough to read in a minute. Notes exist for the observations that are genuinely useful and do not justify a longer piece: a habit worth keeping, a mistake worth naming, a distinction people routinely collapse.
Why the format is deliberately short
Most practical advice about using a Tor marketplace is one or two sentences of substance surrounded by padding. Stripping the padding makes the substance visible and makes it easy to check whether you already know it. A note that could be longer usually should not be.
What notes are good for
Reading through in a sitting before a first visit, then returning to one when it becomes relevant. They are not a curriculum and they do not build on each other, so there is no order and nothing is missed by skipping around.
The recurring theme
Nearly every note comes back to the same thing: the expensive mistakes here are made in a hurry, under pressure, outside normal habits. Standing rules that require no decision at the moment of pressure do more good than any amount of vigilance, because vigilance is exactly what runs out when it is needed.
Why three mirrors, not five, not ten
A short note on the size of the mirror set.
Reading a vendor page in two minutes
The specific numbers to read and the specific ones to ignore.
The first order protocol, small and cheap
How to run your first order on a new vendor without much at stake.
Do not finalise early, one more time
A short note on the FE trap, because it never stops catching new buyers.
Encrypt anything sensitive with the vendor PGP key
The message system is encrypted, but layering your own PGP on top matters for the fields that matter.
Where to store the mnemonic
Paper works. Cloud does not. A few options in between.
Bookmark hygiene, one entry only
Your Tor Browser bookmarks list should have one Nexus entry. Not five.
First-vendor checklist, thirty seconds
The six things to check before ordering from a vendor you have never used.
Withdraw after each order
Do not keep a running balance on the storefront. Sized-to-order only.
Keep sessions short
Long-lived Tor Browser sessions accumulate risk. Close and reopen.
Never stack a VPN under Tor
The combination adds latency and reduces anonymity for most readers.
Recognising a real Nexus address
Prefix, length, character set. The three quick checks.