Guide 02 of 8
Your first visit to BlackOps Market
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What you will see on the login screen, how the captcha works, and what to do before you type anything in.
The first time you open the market, the screen you get is not the shop. It is a gate, and the gate is designed to slow you down just enough to make you check where you are before you commit. Here is what you will see and what to do at each step, so the first visit is a walkthrough instead of a puzzle.
What the login screen actually shows
You will see a login form and, above or beside it, a rotating challenge. The challenge is the part that confuses people, because it changes while you are looking at it. The form itself is plain. A username, a password, and a field for the challenge answer. Nothing on that screen is decorative, and nothing is a trap, which is rarer than it should be. The only thing to decide before you type is whether the address in the bar is the one you verified, because once you are past the gate the address is the only thing standing between you and a clone.
How the captcha works
The challenge rotates on a timer, which means the answer you see now will not be the answer a moment from now. The design is a bet that a machine cannot keep up with a moving target and a person can. In practice that means you should read the current challenge, type the answer immediately, and submit before the next rotation, because a stale answer is rejected even if you got it right. If it fails once, do not assume the form is broken. Assume you were one rotation behind, refresh the challenge, and try the current one. Two failures in a row is the point to check your address, not the point to start refreshing aggressively.
What to do before you type anything
Before the first keystroke, do the verification pass. Confirm the address against the signed list, confirm the list is signed by a key you trust, and only then begin. It is the same pass you will do every time, and doing it once, calmly, on the first visit is the best time to learn it, because the first visit is when you have the most patience and the least pressure. Get in, look around, log out, and let the fact that it worked settle before you buy anything. The market rewards the buyer who takes the first visit as a rehearsal, because the rehearsal is where the habits form that pay off on every order after it.