Silk Road case could set bitcoin legal precedent against self-incrimination
Now that an all-star attorney has been selected for the Silk Road operator's defense, the big show moves to key disclosure laws and whether the Silk Road assets can ever be confiscated by the government. While the government presumably has control over the 26,000 or more bitcoin held in escrow for Silk Road customers, the larger asset base is the primary bitcoin addresses containing over two years worth of operating commissions. FBI estimates place this amount at nearly 600,000 bitcoin (currently worth $80m), however it is probably significantly less than 600,000 since earlier bitcoin was....
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Back in October many of the trolls and ents of Reddit muttered and mumbled to themselves about joining together in a class action lawsuit to claim pieces of the 29000 Bitcoins seized by the FBI on October 2nd, 2013. The 29,000 Bitcoins taken from Silk Road servers on that day belonged to the international motley crew of buyers and sellers on Silk Road. Many of those Bitcoins were tied up in escrow in ongoing deals, or simply sitting in the accounts of buyers and sellers waiting for withdrawal or use. Nothing came of all the hubbub raised by Silk Road users about their Bitcoins being swept....
The Silk Road 2.0 saga continues, a 29-year old Briton has pleaded guilty to supplying and possessing drugs on the Silk Road 2.0 platform. Silk Road 2.0 was the successor of nefarious drug-dealing platform Silk Road, created by Ross Ulbricht in order to create a use case for popular digital currency Bitcoin. The history of Bitcoin has been plagued by both Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 platforms. Not because these platforms created new use cases for the popular digital currency, but because they are both associated with illegal substances, drugs and other illicit dealings. Ever since both....
On the heels of Ross Ulbricht’s official Silk Road court case, it seems like the site is back online and more powerful than ever. The Silk Road returned under the title, “Silk Road Reloaded,” and claims to be even more private than its TOR predecessor. Utilizing an alternative network, called the Invisible Internet Project (I2P), the Silk Road Reloaded can only be accessed by downloading special software. In order to access the new Silk Road, interested parties need to download I2P software. The website URL is silkroadreloaded.i2p, but standard internet browsers will realize that the site....
Accused Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht has been found guilty on all charges on the first day of jury deliberations. Ulbricht, alleged by the US government to be the so-called Dread Pirate Roberts behind the now-defunct online black marketplace, was ruled guilty on a total of seven charges, which include narcotics trafficking on the Internet, conspiracy to commit money laundering and computer hacking. The jury received initial instructions on 4th February, and reached a verdict after three and a half hours of deliberation. The verdict marks the beginning of a new phase in Ulbricht's....
For the last two months, the lawyers for Ross Ulbricht have tried to shift the focus of the case onto the FBI, bringing into question the legality of their actions. How did the FBI obtain the information that brought down Silk Road and leads the current case again Ulbricht? Mr. Ulbricht is facing charges of drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and "continuing criminal enterprise." Ross Ulbricht, better know to many as the alleged DPR or the Dread Pirate Roberts, stands accused of creating a billion-dollar online black market known as Silk Road. Silk Road is a marketplace....