Operator of Silk Road 2.0, Blake Benthall, arrested yesterday by FBI agents in S

[biggus dickus]

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?

[Tzupy]

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.

[painlord2k]

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.

[Rawted]

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?

[MF Doom]

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!

[arbitrage001]

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


enjoy

You seem to think this is good news.

Care to give a reason?

[mmortal03]

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.

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

[mmortal03]

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

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

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

[MF Doom]

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

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

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...

[NotLambchop]

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

[Carra23]

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

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...

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

[MF Doom]

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

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...

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.

[Wandererfromthenorth]

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.

[Wandererfromthenorth]

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  

[NotLambchop]

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

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

[Wandererfromthenorth]

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

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

More like surreal and disgusting.

Explain to me how this is justice:

In a world where the war on drugs has failed, creating a place where you eliminate all violence from 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.

[Tzupy]

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

[ssmc2]

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

[NotLambchop]

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

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

More like surreal and disgusting.

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

[Wandererfromthenorth]

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

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

More like surreal and disgusting.

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.