Bitcoin Forum

Just out of curiosity, why is the sale of counterfeit money prohibited on Silk Road? Does anyone know?

They don't want to get bitcoin traders involved in an infinite money loop?  Traders have a hard enough time with scammers, we don't need counterfeit currency floating around the community too.

Ok, not infinite, since supply is limited.  But still, people would buy it with BTC then send it to BTC for cash services.  We don't need to actively tear down fiat currencies, just step to the side as they fall under their own weight.

Drugs only hurt the purchaser, counterfeit money hurts others.

When used properly, guns hurt others, not the purchaser...

When used properly, guns hurt animals, not the purchaser...

I've used many guns in my life and I've never hurt another human with one.

If it is discovered as counterfeit, whoever has it loses.  They're like hot potatoes unless they are indistinguishable from the legit stuff.

Well if that's the case, sell it as legit currency.  Besides, your clients may have to explain where it came from, and if it says "hey this is fake" then they will get thrown in jail since they knew it was fake.

if admin decide there, then it is question for admin, if community decide there (in some internet democracy), then it is question for community.
I am not there because I don't like that people must pay to become seller and I don't like that someone control me, it is the same with blackmarket. fee is okay after people make business, but to pay before you sold something, that's stupid.


that's control which I dislike, you can make your own website to sell what you want and advertise your website.


cops hunt counterfeit money more than any drugs. logically, such money sabotage economy of the state while drugs damage individuals. therefore people who sell such money are caught very fast, even political police can be included in hunting.
but I am not against any business if the both sides accepted to do it, if there is no cheating. so, if silkroad is only for drugs, you should make "silkroad for all types of business".

My understanding of the ethics of Silkroad is a libertarian one: There is no such thing as a victimless crime. No one is victimized when dealing with drugs. But spreading fake money is a kind of fraud.

Can't agree with you there. Children can harm themselves in countless ingenious ways. How about prohibiting glass? And families with infants shall be prohibited from living higher than the first floor...

Also, cars can be used to harm others too, no? Sorry for the banal example.

Counterfeit money is an ugly thing, not only because it can be harmful (anything can be), but also by nature it awards swindlers and punishes trustful people. Even guns are more neutral than that.

As you say, it's hypothetical. Kids who are on the needle are not likely to have the knowledge required to buy on Silkroad. No one denies that children should not be considered fully responsible for themselves and that there should be controls, however.

It is the war on drugs itself that causes the misery. The government is to blame. If dealing with drugs were legal but regulated, it'd be much easier to enforce access control, because it would kill off the mafia because adults would buy the legal stuff while drug stores would lose their license and get punished when selling to kids.

It's the same with the repression of sex in the US. Nowhere in the western world are so many child pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases as in the US. Sometimes I think the US govt fully knows that and the results are actually desired.

As I understand, selling drugs in Thailand is like playing Russian Roulette. Gives you a real kick  ;)

Saddam Hussein released several billion dollars worth of counterfeit currency into the wild, much of it some of the most sophisticated Russian produced fakes ever seen. It did nothing to devalue fiat. Silk Road could not transact enough currency to make it worthwhile, and every merchant on SR would be at risk for receiving the fakes and then end up stuck with no value for the products they sell.

Not a very effective idea.

Because it's cheating. If someone sells me a Picasso I expect to receive a painting Picasso himself painted. If someone sells a EUR 10 bill, I expect it was printed in the official print shops, not in North Korea. What is so difficult to understand about fraud?

I can't help you if you can't spot the problem in your argument yourself. It really doesn't matter whether your molecular manufacturing device is so good that you can create an atomically precise facsimile. It's still fake and it is not what your counter party expects from you. You don't live up to your part of the deal.

Nope, it would only harm us. If counterfeit banknotes became a real problem, it would help them push centralized electronic payment methods, cheques, etc. They would gladly destroy cash if they could, and they definitely will in the not too distant future.

I would go on the note that a Destabilization of normal currency could actually hurt bitcoin .

This is a twisted argument. Sounds to me like: It's the woman's fault that she got raped. Why did she dress sexy?

In case you didn't notice: Paper money is not what speculators use. I believe there are 8 Trillion Euros but only 280 Billion Paper Euros. I guess the numbers for USD are similar. Fake money hits Joe Average, not George Soros.

Yea not to mention they remove the counterfeit currency from the money pool immediately

than why you try to sell it, when quality is sooooooo gooooood? just go in the shop and spend it or in the bank and put all that money in your bank account and become rich. cheater always stay cheater: "my product is the best, impossible to discover that it is fake, tralala". if anyone use logic, he will ask himself why you sell him almost real coins for some small part of money when you could spend that money by yourself. answer is: you are cheater and you need stupid victim.

do you know what happen with cheaters in drug trade? they finish dead. therefore cheaters stay small criminals, they know what happen with such people in big business.

I bet the costs of a quality setup capable of printing USD notes are very high. There can't be many counterfeiters of paper U.S. money out there, right? And I would imagine that they want a quick ROI. Not something they'd get selling them at a trickle on Silk Road, where every shipment increases their exposure to law enforcement.

The Secret Service (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service) is a lot scarier than the DEA. </speculation>

At least there is no counterfeit bitcoins! (until people start paying with physical bitcoins instead of just using them as storage).

He actually made a great point. If coins are that good, just put them in a bank.

I once imagined a similar thing.
Sites like Silk Road would sell all the equipment and raw materials needed to make high-quality counterfeit money. Brave (crazy?) activists would use such equipment to produce lots of fake money, and just mail packs of cash anonymously to random people all over. As they wouldn't be spending the money themselves, they wouldn't even need to worry with laundering it.

But I guess that, as somebody pointed above, that would probably be moot compared to how much the governments already prints. :D

Plus, the risks and difficulties involved would probably be very high.

Because this way of doing it hurts me, and other innocents, as the result of a direct, intentional act of yours.

Let's suppose you actually manage to flood enough fake fiat on the market to cause 10% inflation. Just suppose.

You've essentially stolen 10% of my dollar-based savings. Not to mention my extended family (who hold more of their savings in dollars than I do.) You've done the exact same thing that central banks are despised for, only you smile and justify it by saying you're helping everyone out.

And of course, there's the more personal example. Suppose you hand out your fake money (fraudulently), and it winds up in the hands of my mother. She tries to deposit it in a bank, and gets arrested. Whether she actually is sentenced to jail isn't my point: just the fact that she would be publicly embarrassed, arrested, and forced to endure that hassle would all be the direct result of your decision to commit fraud, and she would have simply been an innocent caught in the crossfire of your attack on fiat money.

Those immoral outcomes are why I'm personally against such an idea.

I just wanted to tell a ironic story

I grew up in a small town with about 2000 people here in the US. This town has about 10 cops that are dirty as fuck. All through highschool me and everyone I know have been harassed by these dickheads getting pulled over for no reason getting our cars searched sometimes on a daily basis sometimes the cops would just take our money saying it was "drug money" , I've had cops enter my house about 3 different times without a search warrant one of those times the cop kicked my door in and they wouldn't even pay to fix or replace the door, getting tickets for shit that we didn't do.... I've seen many people try to protest these tickets and get sent to jail all the cop has to do is make something up the judges always take a cops word over yours. anyway i guess there was alot of counterfeit money going around at one point.The banks turned in a bunch of it to our cops and a couple weeks later the feds came in and arrested one of them for spending this counterfeit money that never got turned into the feds(Law enforcement is supposed to turn in any counterfeit money to the feds immediately) after further investigation they found out 5 of these cops and just about everyone at the little city court had been embezzling money from tickets and the cops were not turning in drugs and other evidence but keeping it instead.... only 1 of the cops went to jail and he only got 2 years

I live in west virginia and every cop i've ever seen here has been dirty as fuck

I live in Pa and cops here are dirty ass muther fukers too.  Drugs rule pigs drool and snitches get stitches. ftw

From my perspective on interpreting the libertarian philosophy... contracts are sacred.

In an ideal world, two parties should be able to buy and sell whatever they want (as long as no other entities have their rights violated) without any interference from a third party (such as government).

To be fraudulent on a contract voids the contract and natural law would allow for self-defense of life and property by the injured party to obtain restitution.

Counterfeiting is fraudulent and natural law justifies self-defense.

However, if two parties were knowingly entering into a contract to exchange counterfeit money, then no one has be defrauded and no crime of nature committed (not counting man-made or bank-made laws).  Think of it as a form of artwork.  Its not until the counterfeit money is used to scam someone does it become a crime.  And a crime it is.

Just because the banks and government does it, doesn't make it any less of a crime for others to do it. 

+1

You will see ...
After the choice of the right BIP xx, there will be p2p-ebay, or p2p-silk-road.
It will be anonymous, unmoderated, with like-zero cost escrow included.
It will change everything, again :D