Bitcoin Forum

https://twitter.com/NewYorkFBI/status/530386208099426304


enjoy

Good job, bring those criminals to justice.

It's not clear if the feds confiscated any bitcoins, so I can't tell if this is bearish or bullish.

bullish buy the dip

If a sizable amount was seized and withdrawn from circulation, it's bullish. But the news is not:

Exactly one year after it went live on November 6 2013, the Silk Road 2.0 has been taken offline in a joint operation between the FBI and Europol.
Visitors to the deep web drug marketplace have been met with an official police notice informing them of the site's seizure.
European police have hinted that further shutdowns and arrests will occur in the next 24 hours.
Operation Onymous, they say, will conclude within hours, and will "disrupt global activity" on the deep web.

http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2014/operator-of-silk-road-2.0-website-charged-in-manhattan-federal-court (http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2014/operator-of-silk-road-2.0-website-charged-in-manhattan-federal-court)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/blakebenthall is him ?

Looks like it. It may also reveal how he got caught: he's a ruby on rails dev.

Bearish. Trade in illicit goods and services is one of the truly unique uses for cryptocurrency. That people involved in the trade seem to be unable to avoid capture casts doubt on the viability of dark marketplaces, and is likely to get their customers to reconsider just how safe they can expect to be.

Underground guys should start using anon crypto like Monero or decentralized marketplace like OpenBazaar.

e. I don't know if bitcoin was the reason for the arrest.

Setting up shop in essentially the same town as DPR got busted?  What an idiot.

My thoughts exactly. It's like, the most dangerous place in the world for setting up this kind of business. The cost of living in CA is also outrageous, does not make too much sense to stay there if you are earning the income online.

And his hard drive was unencrypted? Gaaahhhh.

lets hope its bullish!

More and more bitcoins will continue to be removed from circulation for years to come....... Value of these coins will start rising crazy soon!

Yes this is speculated why Bitcoin went up after the Silkroad - when you remove a lot of the coins from everyday volume then it introduces more scarcity.

Assuming demand and all else remains the same...

Demand is low at the moment, and wouldn't this only lessen demand?  I mean now these criminal users have nowhere to spend their bitcoins and no reason to get any more.  So naturally demand will be DECREASING

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1354808/blake-benthall-complaint.pdf

I personally do not believe I have enough information to make any assumptions about how this will affect demand. On one hand, if illicit activity catalyzes demand to a significant degree, it could hurt demand.  On the other hand, if weary investors or business owners who have been skeptical to enter the market due to concerns over liability regarding anonymous, illicit activity catch word of this news, this may ease their concerns and encourage demand.

It's hard to say in my opinion.

Trade is not the price driver now. The current price is pure speculative.

Have to see if its bullish or bearish. So far the exchanges are tending to bullish.

And it seems bitcoin price always moves counter to what you would expect, so in summary, who knows what will happen, just stay optimistic (if your holding) and pessimistic if you want to buy in lower  ;D

Quoting from cryptocoinsnews article:

Whenever users deposited bitcoins into their account, they really sent it to an account with three keys, one given to the buyer, the seller, and the site admins.
Obviously, the site admins’ keys are compromised; however, buyers and sellers on these sites will be able to withdraw their bitcoins, or even finish their transactions, without the site admins’ keys.
Since the FBI only controls the site admins’ keys, they can’t seize the bitcoins and auction them. :D

Let me get this straight..

Q: Why use bitcoins?
A: Because they're not controlled by any central authority!

Q: What does this latest silk road bust mean for bitcoin?
A: It's good news! Because a central authority has likely taken many out of circulation, thereby increasing scarcity!

Do you guys ever read back what you're saying?  ???

How is that "unique?"  Unique means one of a kind.  If what you're saying is true, there was literally no trade in illicit goods and services before cryptocurrency because that is "unique" to cryptocurrency.

If anything, the nonrepudiability of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies makes it, at best, no better for selling illicit goods and services than plain old paper currency, which unlike cryptocurrency, has no memory.

But that's wrong, and you equivocate to make your bogus argument seem correct.  Your first example would be why use BITCOIN.  Not why use "bitcoins."

Bitcoin itself is under the control of no central authority.

However, anyone can use "bitcoins," even a central authority.  That doesn't mean they control the protocol or the currency itself, but that just like anyone else, there is no way to exclude them from being a player in the marketplace.  However you get control of individual units of currency, you are capable of doing with them what you choose.

Good point.  Except for minor difficulties like anonymously delivering paper money to an undisclosed [recipient's] address.

Oh great.  In before Lawsky makes multisig wallets illegal.

Good.

Price rise?

:)

I'd love to see them try.

This will be an interesting thing to watch.  "What do you mean we can't take the Bitcoins?"  This may be the first test of government being confounded while trying to seize Bitcoins.  Let's see what they do.

agoramarket is still alive and it was already the new nr 1 drugs market

Agora aside, there are at least 15 other darknet markets.

did it lessen last time? and the silk road isnt their only site... theres like 20 of em that do the same thing

So, Cloud 9 and Hydra have multisig and not confiscable, and Silkroad2 while has no multisig, doesn't hold customer's coins on escrow (AFAIK, the admin stopped escrow after a hack). So all they can confiscate is Blake's personal coins only. I hope he have learned from Ulbricht story and keeps them really safe. Maybe he even set some fiat aside for the trial. :)

There are definitely some interesting questions
Whether the price will react with an upswing or a downswing on this news
And how much the government payday is ^_^

Honestly, what did he expect. That it wouldn't get shut down.

I am just surprised he was that old. I was guessing it was run by some 16 year old kid.

Blake Benthall
http://i1.huffpost.com/gen/2252848/thumbs/n-BENTHALL-large.jpg

S'up Blake, welcome to your new home babe!

http://i62.tinypic.com/2yo4hll.jpg

It seems a sizable amount of bitcoins were seized (how?), quoting from article on Arstechnica:

However, in its investigation of Silk Road 2.0, the government took a different technical tack. In a statement issued by the US Attorney’s Office about the arrest, a spokesperson said, ”During the Government’s investigation, which was conducted jointly by the FBI and [Homeland Security Investigations], an HSI agent acting in an undercover capacity (the “HSI-UC”) successfully infiltrated the support staff involved in the administration of the Silk Road 2.0 website and was given access to private, restricted areas of the site reserved for Benthall and his administrative staff. By doing so, the HSI-UC was able to interact directly with Benthall throughout his operation of the website.”

According to the criminal complaint filed in US Court today, the HSI undercover investigator got in on the ground floor with Silk Road's second incarnation. "DPR2," the original operator of the new site, created a forum to discuss launching a replacement site on a hidden site on the Tor network on October 7, 2013—less than a week after the original site was seized. The undercover investigator was invited to join the forum, and the next day was granted forum moderator privileges; by January 2014, the investigator was a paid staff member, receiving 16 payments in Bitcoins totalling about $32,189 based on current exchange rates.

FBI ARRESTS BLAKE “DEFCON” BENTHALL, ALLEGED OPERATOR OF SILK ROAD 2.0 [UPDATED]
Site is down—arrest nearly a year after feds nabbed Ross "DPR" Ulbricht of Silk Road 1.0.
With that level of authorized access—and with communications directly with Benthall—the FBI and HSI would have been able to gather evidence directly from the site’s server and then use other measures to de-anonymize the individuals associated with it. It’s possible that the investigators may have allowed the site to continue to operate for a period of time to act as a “honeypot” to gain further information about transactions being passed through the marketplace. According to the criminal complaint, "foreign law enforcement authorities" imaged the Silk Road 2.0 server on May 30—which means the site was allowed to continue to operate for five more months while the FBI, HSI, and partner law enforcement organizations gathered data.
That's likely how Irish authorities got information required to stage a drug raid yesterday in Dublin, seizing approximately $200,000 worth of LSD, Ecstasy, and other drugs as well as $18 million in bitcoin. The Irish Examiner reports the raid was the "result of an international drug trafficking investigation into the sale and supply of controlled drugs on an encrypted layer of the internet known as 'the Darknet'."  The operation is part of a broader FBI/Europol operation called 'Onymous," the Examiner reports—"an international day of action to disrupt global activity on the Darknet and remove certain websites and forums is to conclude within the next 24 hours."

I'm not too sure how Irish law works. There was some legal reason the USA had to auction the bitcoins from the original silk road. Does Irish law allow them to directly sell the seized bitcoins, or will they have to auction them too?

On the short term, it is possible to see increased supply of bitcoins into the market (not only exchanges), because the feds' actions may have consequences,
like the need for extra cash to relocate and also more bitcoins spent (and then converted to fiat) for new fake IDs.

On the other side, if the enforcers of laws were not able to seize the bitcoin used for the trading, business could continue without problems in other dark markets.

This operation is darwinistically selecting the best operators for dark markets of the world. The lousy ones are shut down, the best are not.
Just a few iterations of this and they will be threading water.

Apparently they needed one year and probably some 9-10 months of operations to take down SR 2.0 (and other markets).
And this having a mole inside the operation pretty from the start of it.
Now, if DefCon had not used his Gmail account, how much time they would need to locate him?
If he was using a mail account from another, not US friendly, country, like Iran or Sudan or Venezuela, how many months of work would they need?
Had he used Tor to access these services?

People doing this sort of business must learn to use multiple layers of anonymization, not just one.

So he thought it was a good idea to basically mock the U.S. Government/Law Enforcement by setting up a similar drug market, naming it the same thing, and operating it out of the same state?

This sounds like Darwinism at it's finest. Why would you feel the need to be so cavalier?

.

Money...it makes people do dumb things.  He bought a tesla and I'm sure he felt like he was living the high life.  Not any more!

You seem to think this is good news.

Care to give a reason?

Even better would be something like the technology of Monero + the technology of OpenBazaar.

There are other darknet marketplaces: https://dnstats.net/

What makes you think they will stay open though?  The FED's have made it clear these operations are a priority for them to take down.  They dont like bitcoin and their attacks on bitcoin seem to come in waves...

^Another thing:  SR2 was kept open long after the servers were imaged.

http://s28.postimg.org/s4dsf5b1p/Capture.jpg

No effect on price yet, its continuing as it normally would. Does not look like anybody outside this forum even cared.


Why can not they operate in a different country. Always have to stay right below the FEDs nose.

Yes thats what they should be doing, but they us govt can easily work with interpol to take them down wherever they are.  It's probably a safe bet that they are deep undercover when it comes to bitcoin as shown in the most recent bust.  Would be very hard to do this with any sort of team that could be compromised.

Ross Ulbricht and Blake Benthall will probably get life in prison while Jamie Dimon and similar criminals will walk free.


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106




This is the world we live in.
No comment.

In a world where the war on drugs has failed, creating a service where people can trade any product directly between each other (Ross and Blake were not "kingpins" or "ringleaders", they just hosted a site) while you take all violence out of the drug trade equation and you help harm reduction by offering a reputation system that allows only clean and unadulterated products to be consumed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/06/how-the-fbi-just-made-the-world-a-more-dangerous-place-by-shutting-down-silkroad-2-0-and-a-bunch-of-online-drug-markets/)   = Caged for life


Helping drug cartels (where the real crimes and violence are) to launder billions of dollars   (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-money-laundering_b_4619464.html)  =  Free.







Justice is served  ::) ::)

Seems like sometimes ...life's not really fair :(

http://s23.postimg.org/6ia2mcqq3/wizards_elenore.jpg

More like surreal and disgusting.

Explain to me how this is justice:

The shit is piling up, feds claim to have cracked Tor. ::)
http://www.coindesk.com/day-reckoning-dark-markets-hundreds-illicit-domains/

Yeah, like if they actually had they would be letting the whole world know.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8572556

Put yourself in LEO shoes.  They shut down SR1, arrest DPR, and this d00d, allegedly DPR's underling... does he walk away run to a country with no US extradition treaty?
No.  He starts SR2, runs it from San Fran, uses his Gmail, TL;DR: does everything he can short of screaming "look ma I'm doing it!"  I mean, cops can turn a blind eye, but that's pretty much baiting :-\

I agree continuing SR2 after the SR1 bust was dumb as fuck (especially the way he did it), but that's not what I was saying.

I was just pointing out to the fact that those dudes that simply hosted a site are gonna get life in prison while some bankers that are guilty of far worse drug related crimes such as helping drug cartels will walk free.

^Bankers have better lawyers and are less convenient/advantageous to prosecute.  Most people realize that the justice system is unfair, but don't draw attention to it because etiquette.  When you smell a fart in a movie theater, do you yell "somebody farted"?   No.  It's pointless, and makes those around you feel awkward.

http://s10.postimg.org/alffkypmx/silver_spoon_by_90sigma_small.gif

I wouldn't say it's just about better lawyers and being less convenient to prosecute, it's also about fucked up drug laws (and those CAN be changed).


Knowing the ridiculous reasons for it doesn't make it less of a gigantic disgusting contradiction though.
It's people's entire lives we are talking about here, not a fart in a movie theater.

Yes but they got what they deserved. What they were doing was illegal and what did they expect.

https://medium.com/@abarisser/silk-road-317-0-shut-down-b12470515b74

:D
That article actually made me lol

What can I tell you?  Complaining on speculation forums won't change things.

http://rs32.pbsrc.com/albums/d17/Gecko83/1201909270570nk4.jpg~c200

We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man.
...and we wanna get loaded!

No.  That would be as weird as me trying to justify gravity or laws of physics.  The status quo is the way things are.  Don't like it?  Change it.
Yeah, things are shit, but whining about it is pretty weak.

http://s27.postimg.org/9ezhy7rf7/c94d5ff9ca9b.jpg

DPR was hiring hitmen to kill, so if he remains stuck in jail thats quite deserved.

This dude goes on to operate right near the FEDs after that, and so deserves to be in simply for stupidity.

OTC chart today for local bitcoins shows no drop in demand for BTC suggesting the SR 2.0 bust was a non-factor, aside from making a few headlines.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/localbitcoins/USD

The escrow function never worked so it was not a safe place to do business.

Yes.  Apparently they had a man inside from the start.  He likely sabotaged anything that would have made it secure, including the multisig security.  The weak link is always humans.

They're also shielded from prosecution by the very regulations that are supposedly intended to rein in their conduct.  Bank and similar corporations are also expert in compartmentalizing criminal activities so that no individual is personally responsible for committing all of the necessary elements of a crime, and the left hand knows not what the right is doing, so that the government would be obliged, if it wanted to, to prosecute the corporation itself.  Corporations can't be thrown in prison.

The hilarious thing is that in such actions, which are often crimes against the shareholders and customers of the corporation itself, even a conviction would simply result in a fine, which the malefactors would in turn pay out of funds from the very people they ripped off in the first place, i.e., the shareholders and customers.

So the victims get fucked twice.  Meanwhile, the people actually responsible go on their merry way and vote themselves a fat bonus out of the "bailout" money they get if the company goes belly-up because of their mismanagement.

Great gig if you can get it.

Silk Road 3.0 is almost guaranteed to come out within the next 3 months.

Governments are hiring hitmens (aka military) to kill (aka wage wars) so if governmets remains stuck in jail thats would be quite deserved. If hiring hitmen to kill is enough for life in prison, then all US presidents should be there. And all who voted for them - as well, as accomplices.

Wonder what's happened to his BTC, hope he had enough time, maybe out on bail before prosecution to put them in cold storage & hide them somewhere in preparation for his release one day?

He is a flight risk and not released on bail.

Not complaining nor whining.
Just posted facts and opinions related to the topic of this thread.
That's what this forum is for, posting facts and opinions.

out already  ;D

http://gizmodo.com/silk-road-3-is-already-up-but-its-not-the-future-of-da-1655512490

Another load of BTC lost then.

Yep.

Also, when people hear "drugs" or "Silk Road" they think about crack, meth and heroin.
But what about medical cannabis? What about MDMA for PTSD? What about LSD/Psilocybin Mushrooms for cancer patients and cluster headaches (pretty much the only solution THAT WORKS as a cure for people who have them)?

There is serious research being conducted (http://www.maps.org/) on the enormous benefits of these substances if used responsibly and in the right setting.
They are all illegal.

Any explanation about how did he get caught?

I'm more concerned about wether they managed to break tor or not than about btc price

...none of which were sold on SR2.
The clientele--shellshocked cancer patients suffering from cluster headaches--came to SR2 in search of...


And because heartless gubermibnts sadistically criminalized these life-saving medications, SR2 was forced to sell fake passports (to facilitate travel to more humane localities), and carding/skimming crap (to make the medical international travel more affordable).

Yeah, totally relate, bro.
I'm an anhedonia sufferer myself.  BRB, banging speedballs to feel normal.

Cluster headaches can be avoided by hooking up to O2 in time.
Also caffeine can cause headaches.

IMO you should be able to choose if you want to use drugs. There is also a major difference between drug types.
If you do take drugs then be aware of health risks and the risk of losing your job if it impairs your health or judgement.
Drugs do benefit some individuals so let them use them.

How does using drugs make you a criminal?!? I still don't understand that...
Only if you kill someone or break the law under the influence of drugs you are a criminal in my opinion.
Alcohol is a worse drug than cannabis and it is not illegal ... that's discrimination :P.

My 2 satoshi

Well according to the criminal complaint they were able to figure out that Blake was the owner of SR2 because he was extremely lazy in covering his tracks.

http://bitjumble.com/files/misc/memes/Jackie-Chan-WTF-meme-face-70958233396-420x215.jpeg

What in God's Holy Name Are You Blathering About?

SR was free, you could sell whatever the fuck you wanted (aside from weapons and child porn, at least SR1 was like that).
Vendors and users exchanged directly between each other, SR being only a site hosted that allowed the exchange of information (the user address) and of the currency.

SR was the only place where people needing the drugs I mentioned could have them without having to take too much risk on the streets and having a product that was not adulterated, clean, of quality (reputation system) etc.
That's it.

Vendors selling the drugs I mentioned probably had nothing to do with people selling fake IDs and what not.
I'm not even sure the majority of the Fake IDs being sold in the SR were real fake IDs in the first place.
There was a lot of bullshit apparently being sold by new users and scammers (but could be easily avoided by looking at the vendors reputation).

I read an article few months ago all about it.

There are sites on the DarkNet selling Hitman services. Do you think they are real? Totally not scams to get some BTC or bad jokes



Your posts are getting pretty fucking ridiculous lately.

As far as I know not avoided, alleviated.

Wandererfromthenorth, you are angry and confused.  Please read the Blake Benthall Criminal Complaint here (http://www.scribd.com/doc/245744857/Blake-Benthall-Criminal-Complaint) for a lollercoaster of hilarity.

SR2 charged for its services.  Dr. Blake was not running a free P2P clinic.
Re. "I'm not even sure the majority of the Fake IDs being sold in the SR were real fake IDs in the first place":
Of course fake IDs were fake. Start spending substantially more or substantially less on your medication of choice, the current regiment clearly hampers your reasoning ability.
And you can trust me--I'm a P2P doctor 8)

Re. "If drugs are not being sold safely peacefully online, they are sold in the streets with people robbing and killing each other":
Substitute "loli, shota, guns, hits" for "drugs," and your argument remains just as valid.

TL;DR: The feds don't want drugs being sold, peacefully or otherwise.  Blake was the idiot poster child of neckbeard drug trade.  Buying a Tesla, I mean, how gay is that?
Monumentally incompetent, astoundingly clueless, doing everything short of screaming "look at me ma, I'm doing it!  I'm doing it! Ma!"

The only thing I'm unsure about is if Mr. Benthall is real, or if he's a government agent planted to make "darknet" drug dealers look stoopit :-\

http://s2.postimg.org/rfcyvfo61/anon.gif

1. By the REAL "fake ID" I meant that the vendors accounts selling fake IDs were not selling anything at all (basically a scammer, there was a lot of that on SR1 by new vendors without reputation), of course fake IDs are fake. By what I gathered about the old SR, fake Id and a lot of other shit was mostly like the sites selling hitman services. A scam.
But again, that fake ID shit is beyond my main point.
2. I haven't been following Blake Benthall case much because as I said to you earlier operating a SR version 2.0 after the first SR bust was pretty stupid, as you pointed out before and now also. So with all the "the idiot asked for it" argument, I have nothing to say against that.

My arguments were mostly for SR1 in general. Since I wasn't referring to Blake Benthall and SR2 much (SR2 wasn't even the most used darknet site ), I probably shouldn't have him included in my posts, that is correct.



PS: SR (at least version 1) didn't even allow guns, hitman scams, or child porn ("loli"?).

In order to illustrate better the points I made about SR take the example of the upcoming Openbazaar and the issues that arise with it (anybody can sell whatever since it's decentralised and censorship free):

If it works, Openbazaar will be a place:


(1):  ...where people needing the drugs I mentioned (among a lot of other things) could have them without having to take too much risk on the streets and having a product that was not adulterated, clean, of quality (reputation system) etc.
That's it.


My point is  that it is not righteous to shut down a site or software that allows (1) simply because other actors might use it for other purposes.
Exactly as it doesn't make sense to ban the internet itself just because it makes life a lot easier for child porn wierdos etc. Such a measure wouldn't make sense even if it was possible.

Of course the “defcon” dude asked for it etc. Of course the FBI was doing his job, etc But that's beyond my point.

Simple as that.

Lol, but why?
If your argument "If drugs are not being sold safely peacefully online, they are sold in the streets with people robbing and killing each other" shows anything, it shows that all criminal activity should be allowed online, because less violence.

A budding neckbeard criminal should be able to purchase his throwaway .25 from the privacy and safety of his home mom's basement, instead of endangering himself and others by conducting business in the street 8)

It's not righteous to shut down CP websites!!1!
Child pornography is an invaluable tool for understanding the psyche of child molesters.  Why penalize the scholars and providers of such valuable research material just because said material could be misused?

http://s11.postimg.org/h7sq0cej7/twi.gif

How about the law lets individuals do whatever the fuck they wish in their privacy? As long as they obey the regular civil law (no assaults, robberies etc) why would the law deny my free will? Yes you'd rather have more stuff like this happening while we use outdated laws http://en.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2lnnh1/law_enforcement_2_me_0/ instead of bringing the laws up to date to better protect the people.

Stupid ass idiots not being able to think deeper than one level/layer!

I think it's unfair that the Amazon tribes get to trip balls on Ayahuasca erryday, they deserve to get busted too. I mean their tribe shaman is pretty much the local drug dealer, isn't it?

i guess thats what will happen if the gov don't benefit to it.

WTF is Ayahuasca?

Some hippy plant with DMT.

It's essentially orally taken DMT with the help of MAOI.
<tinfoilhat>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Rwi-tam1o
</tinfoilhat>

Not what I said.

I suggest you read my posts more carefully.

http://i61.tinypic.com/ipruol_th.png

It's like weed on steroids i've heard.

Actually it has been reported that Ayahuasca makes you quit weed and other potentially harmful drugs for life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8ZplWWVUyH8#t=401

Not sure about Ayahuasca, but Ibogaine is particularly known for that, especially for heroin addiction:


Random paper about it:
http://www.iceers.org/docs/science/iboga/Alper%20et%20al_1999_Acute_Opiate_Withdrawal.pdf

He should not be allowed to conduct such business either on the street or online. Law enforcement will go after "online" sites because they are a "big" target that can stop a large amount of criminal activity at one time

Well, I disagree on that.  There is little to no purpose served by prohibition.

Additionally, they'll go after online sites because it looks sexy and gets headlines, and they can claim to have stopped a large amount of criminal activity, while actually having done absolutely nothing of any utility whatsoever.

It's barely even tinfoil to wonder if they're simply yet again favoring their preferred drug cartels in Mexico and South America.

This article may help understand how the Tor sites were compromised:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/silk-road-other-tor-darknet-sites-may-have-been-decloaked-through-ddos/

Interesting read. I never fully trusted tor to begin with. Before that article tor like to say it was the safest for hidden services and not so much the end user because of the possibility of bad nodes. Now, assuming that the information in that article is correct, the hidden services aren't really safe either. If that is the case I think it may have outlived its usefulness.

you heard wrong..

More information about the Tor issues:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/law-enforcement-seized-tor-nodes-and-may-have-run-some-of-its-own/

It looks like the short answer as to how so many tor/onion sites were taken down all at once is "we don't know"

I would say that the fact that sites like doxbin were taken down (and other non-illegal sites and various nodes) means that people who are trying to use tor for legit purposes (like journalists in North Korea or China) will be at much greater risk and will probably choose to not use tor in the first place