Silkroad closed down. Owner Arrested.

[wtfvanity]

It would be funny if the Government had Goldman S. crew sitting on the Bid buying it all the way down.


Dirty bastards... They would do that too.

I am wondering how he is NOT in jail?? Should the vendors/users be concerned... only time will tell.

You're wondering why he's not in Jail? He was arrested in July...

The site was still running until today... does that not make sense to anyone? He made a deal, ran the site, and there are going to be tons of arrests.

If you were selling illegal stuff on SR, they're coming for you if they haven't already.

[Gabi]

People sell because they think price will go down so they think "i sell now, get money and buy back later cheaper" 

[NamelessOne]

While annoying, I'm glad this has happened. I've always hated the druggy, illegal aspect of Bitcoin and I hope this causes more people to question if they want to run illegal businesses with Bitcoin. It also gives the government reason to trust that they can handle bitcoin as a developing technology. If people do illegal crap with it, they can catch them, and if they do perfectly legal business, they can tax them. More rats will fill in the holes left by SR, and they risk getting caught also. Fine by me.

Also... buying opportunity, haha.  

[Qoheleth]

My website has two wallets. One holds the customer accounts and balances, and the other holds the "house" profit. The private key for the house wallet does not exist anywhere in digital form. No one ever anywhere can possibly compromise the house wallet without physical access to that private key. And that key is not even in my personal possession, although I know exactly where it is. Someday I will use it, but not for many years to come.

Kind of like burying gold bricks in the desert. No one will ever find them without the map. If he thinks like I do those btc will never be recovered unless he chooses to recover them.

Oh, absolutely. The amount seized is only, like, 5% of what Silk Road supposedly made in commissions? If Ulbricht was saving most of his winnings, he's a Shamir user by now.

[mp420]

About criminal enterprises, a relevant quote:

It really didn't take much convincing, though, because once you start, I don't believe you can stop until you are *caught*. It is too seductive, way too seductive. Viddy well, little brothers, viddy well

He should have stopped while he was ahead.

[Qoheleth]

You're wondering why he's not in Jail? He was arrested in July...

The authorities identified the man as Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested by F.B.I. agents Tuesday afternoon at a library in San Francisco.

[thehun]

It would be funny if the Government had Goldman S. crew sitting on the Bid buying it all the way down.


Dirty bastards... They would do that too.

I am wondering how he is NOT in jail?? Should the vendors/users be concerned... only time will tell.

You're wondering why he's not in Jail? He was arrested in July...

The site was still running until today... does that not make sense to anyone? He made a deal, ran the site, and there are going to be tons of arrests.

If you were selling illegal stuff on SR, they're coming for you if they haven't already.

Source?

[Minor Miner]

So reading the complaint IF (and this is a big IF) the FBI is correct then the SR is many magnitudes larger than most predicted.

All told, the site has generated sales revenue totally over 9.5 million Bitcoins and collected commissions from these sales totaling over 600,00 Bitcoins.  Although the value of Bitcoins has varied significantly during the site's lifetime, these figures are roughly equivelent today of approximately $1.2 billion in sales and approximately $80 million in commissions.

pg 6 (section 16).  Sadly the pdf is an image not copyable text so I am not going to hand copy a larger quote.
http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf

On edit:  I guess that isn't as surprising as I thought.  SR has been around ~30 months.  $1.2 billion / 30 = $40 million per month.  In 2012 a study estimated volume at $10M to $15M per month.  In a followup about 6 months later sales were reported to have increased significantly and the author said $40M wasn't unlikely.  I guess just seeing it as a single aggregate figure was shocking.

Yes, it was just there for government shock value.   And most of those coins were used when you need thousands of BTC to buy $200 worth of something (and now the government is saying that those 2,000 BTC are really $290,000...... 
Further in the complaint it gives a number on how much he made in commission in the last year (?) and you get a better picture of size.
He was living in an apartment with roommates and paying $1000 per month.   Not exactly KimDotCom money.

[wtfvanity]

You're wondering why he's not in Jail? He was arrested in July...

The authorities identified the man as Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested by F.B.I. agents Tuesday afternoon at a library in San Francisco.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/02/feds-arrest-the-alleged-founder-of-bitcoins-largest-drug-market/

The government then identified the primary Silk Road server and obtained an image of its hard drive in July, providing the federal government with a wealth of information about the Silk Road's operations.

[Gimmelfarb]

Goddamit!

Just like DPR got fucked over by technology, so did I!

I had both http://www.bitcoin-tools.de/index.html AND http://namcdn.com/btcalarm/
running on Firefox AND Opera with alarms set to under 137$ and they all failed me!

Dammit.

sounds like, of the two of you, you came out alright. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

You're wondering why he's not in Jail? He was arrested in July...

The authorities identified the man as Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested by F.B.I. agents Tuesday afternoon at a library in San Francisco.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/02/feds-arrest-the-alleged-founder-of-bitcoins-largest-drug-market/

The government then identified the primary Silk Road server and obtained an image of its hard drive in July, providing the federal government with a wealth of information about the Silk Road's operations.

I seem to be missing the word "arrest".  Most likely through some manipulation of tor they were able to find and break into the server.   That "wealth of information" probably led to clues which led to more which eventually led to them making the arrest not in July but yesterday.

[Minor Miner]

At the bottom of page 20 of the criminal complaint you can get a better feel for the size of Silk Road.   you have to realize that they pick the BIGGEST days for the most shock value.
He received $19,459 of commission on one day and the FBI choose that day.   So, assume it was NOT the biggest day and he made that EVERY DAY.   $19,459 X 364 days = $7,083,076 per year (yet later they seem to indicate it is only $3.4M) in commission.   Let's assume the average commission is 7% (low end so as to maximize the size), that would make Silkroad $100,000,000 per year business.

[cr1776]

And that Tor is not secure enough for this type of system.

Who's to say that there won't be another SR? This should serve as a lesson. Centralized systems, even if clandestine, are easily brought down.

[chadwickx16]

Is anyone curious as to why the SR logo is in the background of the seizure notice?? In past FBI seizure's the logo has never appeared.

[wtfvanity]

I seem to be missing the word "arrest".  Most likely through some manipulation of tor they were able to find and break into the server.   That "wealth of information" probably led to clues which led to more which eventually led to them making the arrest not in July but yesterday.

Read the whole article. I'll quote more for you.

The government says it identified Ulbricht after a routine border search of a package that contained nine counterfeit IDs. The package was shipped from Canada to an address in San Francisco. When the government visited the San Francisco address, they found Ulbricht there.

The government then identified the primary Silk Road server and obtained an image of its hard drive in July, providing the federal government with a wealth of information about the Silk Road's operations.

It says because of the fake id's they found him there, then they talk about finding the server, and they mention July.

[grue]

Is anyone curious as to why the SR logo is in the background of the seizure notice?? In past FBI seizure's the logo has never appeared.
http://media.coindesk.com/2013/10/silk-road-marketplace-seized.jpg

http://ryangreenberg.com/files/2012/megaupload/megaupload.png

also, past seizure images did not have drop shadows on the logos.

[wtfvanity]

Is anyone curious as to why the SR logo is in the background of the seizure notice?? In past FBI seizure's the logo has never appeared.

Do an images search for domain seized. They have FBI logos on them, all the agencies involved. I've never seen the company that they seized their logo in the background, and have never seen it for a hidden service.

[wtfvanity]

Is anyone curious as to why the SR logo is in the background of the seizure notice?? In past FBI seizure's the logo has never appeared.
http://media.coindesk.com/2013/10/silk-road-marketplace-seized.jpg

http://ryangreenberg.com/files/2012/megaupload/megaupload.png

also, past seizure images did not have drop shadows on the logos.

Read my post above this one, yes they have.

[Severian]

It says the FBI seized BTC worth $3.6 Million US. Thats about ~25,500 BTC.

That's 25,000 btc that can now be tracked by the Feds. They'll probably use them to setup fake SR-style honeytraps.

[Gimmelfarb]

It says the FBI seized BTC worth $3.6 Million US. Thats about ~25,500 BTC.

That's 25,000 btc that can now be tracked by the Feds. They'll probably use them to setup fake SR-style honeytraps.

can now be tracked? i don't understand. blockchain was always public.... the feds are already holding the "marked" money -- how does that help them going forward?