It’s Just “Common Sense” - A Study of Digital Capital and Performance in Darknet Market Participation

Sammanfattning

The darknet cryptomarkets marked an evolution in the drug trade by providing technological anonymity and security for both sellers and buyers. Together with their surrounding forums, they form an ecosystem where participation and access to its safety and harm reduction benefits depend on digital capital, a resource that is not equally available to all. This study examines how digital capital influences participation within the darknet ecosystem, drawing on Park (2017) and Ragnedda and Ruiu (2020), and explores how that capital is performed and policed through social interactions by applying Goffman’s (1959, 1982) dramaturgical framework. Data were collected through netnographic observations across three cryptomarkets and one large cryptoforum, as well as semi-structured interviews with eight users. The study sheds light on how the forum functions as a site for knowledge circulation within the ecosystem and as a space for beginners to acquire the skills necessary to navigate the cryptomarkets. Participation does not come for free; digital capital functions as a currency that determines who has access to meaningful participation and the benefits it offers. Participants tend to internalize their digital capital as common knowledge, and interactions within the cryptoforum are embedded in norms of self-learning, where users must demonstrate time and effort in acquiring knowledge and skills. This is further reinforced by a division on the platforms, where users who have not yet reached the capital necessary for meaningful participation are expected to participate in their own “noob” section. In turn, the communities’ own norms and protective mechanisms reproduce digital exclusion within the darknet ecosystem, where participation and access to its benefits are unequally distributed.