End of Silk Road is good for the long run

[IIOII]

Clearly this won't be the end of such kind of trade - other sites will come up quickly.

I think a possible positive effect for Bitcoin will not stem from a sudden change in perception as a "more legal" currency but more from its ability to absorb the SR takedown. This will show its strength as a widespread multi-purpose currency.

[abacus]

I think a possible positive effect for Bitcoin will not stem from a sudden change in perception as a "more legal" currency but more from its ability to absorb the SR takedown. This will show its strength as a widespread multi-purpose currency.

Excellent remark, I hadn't considered that aspect.

[rupy]

Yes, this is a huge benefit for BTC.

The goal of Bitcoin is not to help the "evil" from the bottom of our society, but to eradicate the "evil" from the top! (politicians, bankers, lawyers = everyone with a tie)

And now focus can be on that goal. If you think about it Bitcoin is the best direct democracy tool we have ever had!

We have crossed the Rubicon and Bitcoin will succeed (legal tender in germany and ASIC hardware).

You always have to be careful what you wish for, I think Bitcoins success might also become it's failure.

But not to worry, cryptocurrencies are here to stay!

[DumbFruit]

The interesting thing about this is we can watch where the price of Bitcoin settles after this, and the difference will tell us what the competitive advantage of a totally anonymous crypto-currency would be.
If it trades substantially lower, that would be a good signal to those like the ZeroCoin proponents that the extra bloat on transactions would be worth it.
For example, if Bitcoin starts trading at $12/each, a good case could be made for a 10x larger transaction size if it brings back that market.
I wonder how big of a correction we'll see. I would be amazed if this was the bottom.

Also, cheer-leading the FBI for taking down a peaceful business in the Bitcoin space is strange to me.

[BitBlitz]

Also, cheer-leading the FBI for taking down a peaceful business in the Bitcoin space is strange to me.

^^^^^ Obviously hasn't read the charges

[Gimmelfarb]

Also, cheer-leading the FBI for taking down a peaceful business in the Bitcoin space is strange to me.

^^^^^ Obviously hasn't read the charges

well, i guess what did anyone expect? if you make threats that will get slews of people imprisoned and will take down a huge drug trafficking network, you're going to get got. that's just a fact. but it's strange, considering that the snitch/victim was the one who who really threatened violence against SR users.

[DumbFruit]

Ya, I knew about the alleged assassination request.

The fact is, when a gigantic monopolist of violence refuses to protect your rights and the rights of your clients, the only rational thing to do is perform vigilante justice.

Is he suppose to apologize because he has no access to a judge, jury, or executive office to hear his pleas?

Of course assassination in response to the dissemination of his customer's information isn't perfect justice, but when the most powerful protection racket in the world out to get you, then you don't have allot of options.

The media is going to try to get us all in a tizzy over what this guy threatened to do, while we ignore the injustice that the United States government perpetrates every day.

If there was another allegation, then you're right, I haven't read it. I'm sure the aforementioned would apply though.

[masterof101010]

There's just gonna be a number of clones come about now that there's a huge vaccum and userbase with BTC they desperately need to buy their dope with.

BMR has been around as long as SR and it's not succeeded because SR had the vast majority of users, and compatibly SR's policies were more ... 'morally centered' ...

The listing of hitmen was strictly prohibited on SR (regardless of DPRs willingness to use one), all weapons and ammo were banned from SR (which is why DPR tried to create a splinter site called The Armory, which sold only weapons (It had no success and was shut down), poisons were banned from being listed, fake CC and other identity THEFT was prohibited from being listed and in it's buyer's guide they say that the sale of anything whose intent is only to cause harm is strictly banned from being listed.

BMR on the other hand has listing's for hitmen, poisons, guns, you name it.

Now that they don't have SR to go to, it's user's are going to start looking at BMR and just ... disregard the sites policies on selling materials/actions of pure harm.

There's probably half a dozen people right now at this moment creating their own SR clones to try and snatch up some of the 937,000 userbase that SR had.

LEO did what they do, but they just made the problem viciously worse for themselves because they just took a centralized online contraband distribution network and blew it up into 100 shards ... each shard being a person or group whose now going to try to take some of all that massive userbase and profit generating capabilities (people will pay 15% fee no prob. if it means they can push drugs 10 times faster then on the street (and safer) for themselves while we see mock SR clones pop up.

That'll leave LEO's with many many online contraband transfer services to try and take down vs. when it was all centralized in one place.

Point is end of silk road is a momentary blip in the onionland based distribution of BTC for the sale/purchase of contraband.  There will be just as much online drug trafficking not even a week from now, there's simply too much allure to those willing to sell illegal goods for them not to seize the massive 'homeless' SR user's.

Besides, BMR (Blackmarket Reloaded if you weren't aware) is already up, running and established.  That site is likely to see itself booming shortly, and the interruption of onionland BTC traffic due to SR's shut down is going to be a transient one.

[johnyj]

I'm just curious how did they seize those coins? They got his wallet password? He has the right to keep silent 

[DumbFruit]

I don't think they actually confiscated any bitcoins, but we'll see. Edit: See below.

The benefit could actually be much greater than would be indicated by that metric.

Oh ya, I agree it couldn't be precise since the FBI didn't eliminate the market completely, and we don't know what the potential market is, I just think it will be an interesting thing to see.
Good points!

[theonewhowaskazu]

I agree with OP. I can't tell you how many times people equate Bitcoin to drugs. They'll likely have a much harder time doing that once SR is gone. Although another SR is likely to appear, its unlikely to be as famous as the original.

[masterof101010]

I'm just curious how did they seize those coins? They got his wallet password? He has the right to keep silent  

Those coins were seized from the SR web server, where he had kept a fraction of what was seized.  Hes made a net worth of like $100 million, which are probably in wallets ... that he's going to keep quiet about.

The SR Web Server gave buyer's Escrow, that's why they took the chance in the first place, so the web server which was also acting as an escrow service had all the BTC from all the pending transactions of buyer's whose bitcoins were being held in SR's Escrow until they received their order and released their order's BTC from escrow to the vendor.

Other words, everyone whose an SR member and whose deposited money into their SR account just lost all those BTC.  The BTC of vendor's who had funds in their silk road account that they had yet to withdraw are gone.  The padding funds used to operate an Escrow service are gone.

Basically they seized whatever was on the Silk Road Web Server, which they're in possesion of, and sadly they didn't seize much from DPR, they seized everything from every SR user who had funds in their SR accounts.

[Gimmelfarb]

tever was on the Silk Road Web Server, which they're in possesion of, and sadly they didn't seize much from DPR, they seized everything from every SR user who had funds in their SR accounts.

this exactly. it's really quite a sad state of affairs. i never used SR but a friend of mine is now out a few coins. 

[ErisDiscordia]

awww now the government will finally like us, pat our heads and kindly let BTC exist in their endless benevolence. What a statist circle jerk this place has become.

[Gordon Bleu]

No it's not

[glub0x]

I'm just curious how did they seize those coins? They got his wallet password? He has the right to keep silent  

Those coins were seized from the SR web server, where he had kept a fraction of what was seized.  Hes made a net worth of like $100 million, which are probably in wallets ... that he's going to keep quiet about.

The SR Web Server gave buyer's Escrow, that's why they took the chance in the first place, so the web server which was also acting as an escrow service had all the BTC from all the pending transactions of buyer's whose bitcoins were being held in SR's Escrow until they received their order and released their order's BTC from escrow to the vendor.

Other words, everyone whose an SR member and whose deposited money into their SR account just lost all those BTC.  The BTC of vendor's who had funds in their silk road account that they had yet to withdraw are gone.  The padding funds used to operate an Escrow service are gone.

Basically they seized whatever was on the Silk Road Web Server, which they're in possesion of, and sadly they didn't seize much from DPR, they seized everything from every SR user who had funds in their SR accounts.

Well can someone argue that he was using Sr as a art buyer hence doing nothing bad? Just like there is drug dealer in the street doesn t mean govt can seize money from ppl walking arround? Just wondering if someone will have ciurage to claim this back...

[markjamrobin]

There are already established clones. You can't do much worse than have a operator who was visited by DHS in July, volunteered information about buying fake ID through SR, and apparently still thought himself untouchable enough to continue business as usual (either that, or he isn't the anarchist we thought he was). So yes - SR's disappearance is good long-term for using BTC to purchase illicit goods online, because I can't imagine much worse.
  

If DHS knocked on my door, and I was him, I would destroy everything, and run with my > 3 million to Spain/Russia.

[CoinHoarder]

I agree it is a good thing in the long run. However, I hope you realize Silk Road was the pioneer of the power of combining TOR and crypto currencies. There will be many "Silk Roads" in the future, there are already alternatives that exist. It's the power of the people, TOR, and Bitcoin.... DPR supposedly made bank. I'm sure people are going to try to replicate that. I would never do it because I would be paranoid 24x7. I can't imagine, but there are others that will and are obviously.

The only thing that comes out of this is a lot of press about Bitcoin and Silk Road. As they say.. "any news is good news". But it seems most Bitcoin investors seem to like to dump at the sign of any bad news, so I wouldn't be surprised if the price crashed because of this either. We are in the danger zone right now with some big dumps.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The end of SR doesn't mean the end of drug sales in Bitcoins any more than the bust of any USD based drug operation means the end of sales in USD.

SR had a million users, it did 9M BTC in volume in 30 months despite charging more than 8% fee (and people complain about Ebay).   The means a demand exists.  SR is done, the operator is out (due to self inflicted stupidity).  Someone else will step up to collect that lucrative profit.  If/when they go down another someone or half dozen someones will step up.

When people stop buying drugs in USD they will stop buying drugs in BTC.   

[CoinHoarder]

Well said as always D&T.