Feds can't access Ulbricht's Bitcoin wallet

[raskolnikov543]

Link: FBI and Bitcoins

LOL, they have $80 million in Bitcoin but it's all encrypted . Also, users from Silk Road are not able to reclaim their Bitcoins, about $3.2 million.

What do you think, what will they do with Bitcoins?

 

[Machin Shin]

That is a really interesting question really. The encrypted bitcoins are worthless unless they manage to crack the encryption somehow. The rest are probably in a legal limbo. Would not shock me one little bit though if they get "deleted" only to have some director magically get a new vacation home.

Another possibility though is for them to shift them around some and use those coins in sting operations. Closing Silk Road created a vacuum, others will quickly step up and fill that hole. I have seen few places already talking about alternatives that popped up.

 

[KenJackson]

This case has a bunch of positives and negatives.

It's good that Silk Road is shutdown.

Silk Road was a bad blight on Bitcoin's acceptance. Fascists in every government hate Bitcoin because it devolves power to individuals and promotes personal freedom. But the existence of an illicit market that benefited from Bitcoin's properties gave every fascist some leverage to try to take away that power and freedom.

It's good that the FBI can't crack someone's encrypted file. Let's find out what encryption he was using and promote it.

It's bad that people can't get back the money they had put there for safe keeping.

The article said, "... worth about $80 million, which is about 5% of all Bitcoins on the market." Wait! That means there's about $1.6 BILLION in Bitcoin! That's good. May it expand without limit.

 

[Machin Shin]

I would have to disagree with you KenJackson in your thought that taking down Silk Road was good.

The issue of taking down Silk Road is a lot more complex than people give it credit for. If you step back and look at it, Silk Road was an anonymous marketplace. That by itself is not illegal or bad. Of course, people used Silk Road to do bad and illegal things. If that is the measure you use to say it was evil and needed closing then you could say Tor is also evil and needs to go.

So the market place itself was not evil, it was the users that were doing illegal things. (and apparently the guy who started silk road also was breaking the law, but he should be tried for those crimes, not for silk road) It is important though that we don't attack service providers for providing a service. Instead we need to focus on the people committing the crimes.

Building off my point that we need to go after the people committing the crimes, what has shutting down Silk Road accomplished? Do you really think all those drug dealers and such tossed up there hands and said "oh well, marketplace is closed so I guess we have to stop". No, what they have done is moved, and they now will move deeper underground and be harder to find. At least with Silk Road you had a place to start looking.

You can even add another layer to the problem. That is the fact that Silk Road actually in some ways made things safer. The drugs being sold often were of good quality and were directly delivered. So this cut down on the dealers on street corners. People were getting their drugs in a relatively safe method instead of going into the bad part of town and getting stuff that is cut with rat poison and such.

So I would argue that shutting down Silk Road was stupid on a lot of fronts. The one thing it did do was give the cops something to brag about. They can now party and talk about how they are "doing something". Although, if you really look at it you will quickly see it had no real lasting effect.

 

[slashedzero]

I don't think Silk Road will be the end of Bitcoin. It's popping up seemingly everywhere as an acceptable form of payment. However, depending on what happens with the Silk Road bitcoins, we may see it diminished as a way of paying for illicit goods, which will definitely tarnish its reputation.

Also, for the users who lost their Bitcoins, it's sadly the price you pay for using an unrecognized currency. This is the dilemma of such a currency, as it won't be controlled by any sort of monetary authority and therefore confidence in the currency will likely always suffer. As a form of investment, I'd stay away from Bitcoin, but as a form of paying for goods, I think it's brilliant.

 

[KenJackson]

..., Silk Road was an anonymous marketplace. That by itself is not illegal or bad. ...

So the market place itself was not evil, it was the users that were doing illegal things. (and apparently the guy who started silk road also was breaking the law, but he should be tried for those crimes, not for silk road)

Maybe there's a misunderstanding about what "the Silk Road" is. My understanding is that it was one website accessible only via TOR which was run by (or at least managed and controlled by) one man and which sold predominantly dope. It sounds like you might be talking about some broader concept.

The Silk Road to which I referred was a blight on the name of Bitcoin. People, especially some fascists in Congress, were associating Bitcoin with the drug trade. If they successfully tied the two together in the mind of the public, they could and probably would outlaw the use of Bitcoin in the US.

Instead we need to focus on the people committing the crimes.

That's exactly what they did. Selling dope is more illegal than buying or possessing it.

... Silk Road actually in some ways made things safer. The drugs being sold often were of good quality ...

Oh good grief. I guess that's what the guy running the site would claim. I wonder if he offered your money back if you were not delighted or if you dropped dead from using his product.

 

[Machin Shin]

Maybe there's a misunderstanding about what "the Silk Road" is. My understanding is that it was one website accessible only via TOR which was run by (or at least managed and controlled by) one man and which sold predominantly dope.

The Silk Road was a site only accessible via TOR. It was a marketplace though. Think e-bay, only totally anonymous. So it was not just one guy only selling drugs. It was a lot of different people selling a lot of different things.

Where I got the claim that the drugs were good quality was actually reading some news reports that were quoting the police that did the sting. They had ordered different drugs and then did tests to see if they really were selling the drugs they claimed. What police found was that they were getting what they ordered.