Access
Why markets run many mirrors, and how to move between them.
The subject of access is about reaching a market and staying reached. A single onion address is a single point of failure, so serious markets publish several that all resolve to the same place.
Why more than one address
An address can be unreachable for reasons that have nothing to do with the market: a flooded introduction point, a bad Tor guard, an address under takedown pressure. Running several addresses at once means a problem with one does not take the market down. Every mirror leads to the same account, balance and order history.
Rotating across the list
When an address stalls, the correct response is not to wait. Open the market's signed mirror list and move to the next live onion. Some entries in this directory, Mars, Osiris and TorZon, are filed specifically for the depth of their mirror pools. TorZon runs seven addresses at once, the deepest here.
The queue
One entry, TorZon, puts a server-side waiting room in front of the login. It holds every visitor for a short spell so bots cannot hammer the captcha behind it. It is flood control, mildly annoying the first time and normal by the third.
The rule that does not change
Redundancy only helps if every address you rotate to is one the market actually published. Verify each against the signed list. Cross-reference the security topic.