How much demand is coming from Silk Road?

[scooter]

I'd like to think that the rapid increase in value is due to speculation from all the recent press on Bitcoins.
However, I wonder how much demand is being driven by Silk Road.
I never heard of it until today, but clearly the word is out and if even a small percentage of the worlds illicit substance users want to use Bitcoins for this reason I can imagine the price continuing to rapidly increase until governments work overtime to shut it down.

[Astro]

I think very little in reality, but the potential to engage in similar transactions without the government knowing about it is probably a big draw.  If there are 100 Silk Roads next month, people want to be ready.

[Blindside]

If you look at the publish date of the recent article from Gawker that showed up in Wired, you'll see that the demand for bitcoins has increase the value a little over two fold.  I'm sure it will level off a bit, but there really isn't any value to bitcoins if people can't spend them for the things they want and that is why SR has made such an impact.  It really shows how much people value their drugs.

[Litt]

forget the users... where are all the drug lords who need easy ways to move their money all over the world? 

[andrew_jacksun]

w00t
drugs @home, nevada style brothels, and liberty

what the people want

[clickbangdone]

forget the users... where are all the drug lords who need easy ways to move their money all over the world? 

They'll never use bitcoins too risky. They want cash. How would they turn bitcoins into cash without the transaction being tracked?

[GideonGono]

forget the users... where are all the drug lords who need easy ways to move their money all over the world? 

They'll never use bitcoins too risky. They want cash. How would they turn bitcoins into cash without the transaction being tracked?

Coin Tumbling

[Tukotih]

You can still purchase psychoactives by using bitcoin.
Silk Road might have been the No. 1 site for purchases of the kind but since the RC-market* has flourished the last years you can just buy a virtual visa through bitcoinpayout for example and then order some RC that's both legal and cheaper than street-drugs.

*RC = Research Chemical, a psychoactive substance that has not yet become illegal. Often poorly documented (side-)effects and therefore cheap. Commonly purchased from web-shops.

[Blindside]

Jeff Garzik, a member of the Bitcoin core development team, says in an email that bitcoin is not as anonymous as the denizens of Silk Road would like to believe. He explains that because all Bitcoin transactions are recorded in a public log, though the identities of all the parties are anonymous, law enforcement could use sophisticated network analysis techniques to parse the transaction flow and track down individual Bitcoin users.

"Attempting major illicit transactions with bitcoin, given existing statistical analysis techniques deployed in the field by law enforcement, is pretty damned dumb," he says.

I doubt major organizations will use bitcoin, but it offers a method for them to create their own network which they could use when they make their blackmarket facebook site.

[scooter]

Silk road closed their doors to new members...
Price plummets.
hmmmm