From someone who maybe works/worked for an O.G.A., let me clue you in on what's really going on. The DDoS attacks are government-run, as 'smoke and mirrors' for what they are actually doing behind the 'smokescreen' of the DDoS. Hence why the attacks are across multiple marketplaces and usually at the same time: they are part of the same operation.

There is no blackmailing or extortion going on in the DNM hacker community. These DDoS attacks are quite powerful, harnessing basically, if they want, every U.S. citizen's store-bought computers since circa 2006 (i.e. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, etc.), pre-infected with government "malware", making them essentially all "zombie" computers needed for an attack that can crush any anti-DDoS hardware or software protection.

But, as you should take note, again, the DDoS attacks are happening in a pattern, and across the board of DNMs. Why, you ask? Because while the administration of Agora, Black Bank, etc. are trying to bring the websites back up, finding new servers, trying new DNSs and A records, the DDoS "distraction" allows for the O.G.A. hackers to do the real damage: acquiring SQL databases, applying root malware to the servers for future mega data collection (that are government-made, therefore, no anti-virus/malware software is 'knowledgeable' about them, let alone the small team(s) of hackers running these marketplaces)., and possibly even arresting big-time dealers during the downtime and, once they let the DDoS attacks up, allow for the marketplaces to continue as per usual.

This allows for them to replace the big-time dealers with government(s) officers, under the same alias, and monitor (and subsequently arrest) the purchases of big-time buyers, while allowing personal use buyers to continue their purchasing, in other words, basically, they are mapping out the top-down distribution network of illegal contraband and drugs, and connecting dots to organized crime, such as the Triads of Hong Kong (Fentanyl, RC MDMA, misc. hallucegenic RCs), one of the main focuses that I know of, as well as terrorist organizations (ISIS)/rogue countries smuggling of raw opium (think Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan) to be subsequently rendered into Heroin.

Essentially this is all part of a MUCH larger project to 'peel' back the Onion that the DoD itself made years ago. And, they will be successful. My advice? Never keep any BTC on any of the DNMs as they are all bound to go under at some point or another. I have never personally used any illegal DNM website, but am putting this information out there, as it should be known to the masses.

They utilize tools to automate information gathering that can be used to make spear phishing messages more convincing by mimicking how individuals interact with others, with whom they interact, and the vocabulary and phrasing they use, by grabbing the data from the DNM messaging system (among others, including supposedly "encrypted" means), using both APIs and screen scraping. Then they proceed to analyze the data to show frequency of use of verbs, adjectives and nouns, average sentence length, hobbies, and networks of friends in the 'DNM hacker community', in order to create a "clone" of the person(s) whom they have arrested, without raising suspicion.

So, it is quite possible that Agora, Black Bank, etc. are already taken over by the U.S. + N.A.T.O. + Interpol, and are being run for purposes of 'the war on drugs', let alone other DN websites that proliferate sex slavery, communication channels/financing for terrorist organizations, other illegal contraband, etc. We (the world) have absolutely NO way of identifying if the original administrators of the DNMs are the ones actually still, to this day, pulling the strings. They have the tools and resources to mimic/gather data from everything from the Bitcoin Blockchain to the data inside PGP "encrypted" messages, and likewise, public keys, that the DNM "admins" claim to their messages are 'legitimate' because they are using the same public key as before.

This string of DDoS attacks is not random, and is highly organized. The government would not be wasting their time turning 'the switch' off and on and off and on again, regarding their use of DDoS, as it IS truly a smokescreen for MUCH bigger operations.

Food for thought.