Filter ยท track record
Longest running
If you filter on one thing and you have no other constraint, filter on this. Age is the only property in this catalogue that cannot be manufactured with money, a redesign or a marketing push.
| Market | Since | Coins | Addresses | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WeTheNorth | 2021 | BTC, XMR | 3 | Canada, English and French |
| TorZon Market | 2022 | BTC, XMR | 5 | Global, English |
| Nexus Market | 2023 | BTC, LTC, XMR | 3 | Global, English |
| Mars Market | 2023 | BTC, LTC, XMR | 3 | Global, English |
Four entries from 2023 or earlier. The remaining five all appeared in 2024 and are covered on the newest page.
What surviving a few years demonstrates
Not competence and definitely not honesty. What it demonstrates is that the operation got through whatever happened in that window, and the window always contains attacks, extended outages and at least one round of addresses being retired and replaced. Those are the events that finish off things that were not built to take them.
So age is evidence of durability under ordinary pressure. That is a narrow claim and it is a real one.
Where the argument stops
It predicts nothing about tomorrow. A track record describes behaviour up to now and stops the moment somebody decides the future will be different, and that decision is invisible from outside for every market on this list. The incentive also runs the wrong way, because the more trust an operation has accumulated the larger the payoff from spending all of it at once.
The four, in order
| Market | Since | What else |
|---|---|---|
| WeTheNorth | 2021 | Oldest here by a year. Canada, English and French. BTC and XMR |
| TorZon | 2022 | Also the largest address set here, five instead of three |
| Nexus | 2023 | Takes Litecoin as well as BTC and XMR |
| Mars | 2023 | Identical to Nexus on every checkable fact |
What this filter costs you
- Ethereum is off the table. The only market taking it appeared in 2024.
- The oldest entry is regional. If you are not in Canada and do not read French, the top of this list is aimed at somebody else.
- You are choosing on the past. Which is the point, and it is still the past.
Sensible use of this page
As a tiebreaker rather than a first filter. Start with the coin you hold, then with language if that is a constraint, and use age to settle what is left. Filtering on age first usually leads people to a market that does not take their coin, which is a worse outcome than either constraint on its own.
What the four oldest have in common
Almost nothing beyond age. One is regional and bilingual, one publishes five addresses, two take Litecoin, and they arrived across three different years. That spread is useful, because it means filtering on age does not force you into a particular coin or a particular audience the way most filters here do.
Why the top of this list is awkward
The oldest entry in the catalogue is also the only one not aimed at a global audience. So for most readers the honest reading of this page is that the best answer on the age column is aimed at somebody else, and the practical top is the one below it. That is an uncomfortable result and it is better than quietly dropping the regional entry to make the list tidier.