The Crown Market onion address

A v3 address is the current standard for hidden services on Tor. It is built from a 32-byte public key, encoded into 53 characters from a base32 alphabet, and finished with the literal suffix .onion. That makes 56 visible characters in total. If a posted address is shorter, it is either an older v2 address or a broken copy, and it should not be typed in.

Check the string, not the shape

Do not verify an address by looking at it. Paste the known-good string and the one you found into a plain text editor side by side and compare character by character. Confirm the final six characters spell .onion and that the total is 56. One transposed character produces a valid-looking address that leads to a completely different server, so the comparison tool matters more than your eyes.

What a key rotation changes

When the market rotates its cryptographic keys, the published address changes entirely while the shop behind it stays stable. Your login, purchase history and any held funds remain attached to your username. Only the web path changes. Any bookmark that pointed at the previous address stops resolving the moment the rotation completes, which is why this page keeps the current string in one place.

When not to trust a link

Treat an address with suspicion if it arrived through a private message you did not ask for, if it is noticeably shorter than the 53-character body, or if it was pasted on a forum you never bookmarked. Legitimate distribution happens through a stable page updated on a schedule, not through casual chat. When in doubt, compare against the three addresses on the mirrors page before you type anything.