Silk Road

“Next thing you know, he's making millions and millions and millions of dollars a day as the biggest drug dealer on the internet.”

“Where I think, I don't know if at its peak, but I think Silk Road was doing like, you know, over a billion dollars, like GMV through the marketplace.”

“By the way, this is how they caught Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road. He just, he posted on a forum, logged into the wrong username, or he left his email, like it was like a clerical error.”

“I think that he should be in jail for a long period of time because he tried to kill a bunch of people.”

“And it was basically the first use case of Bitcoin like in the very early days, and it's part of the reason why, like, Bitcoin got a reputation as being a, Currency for like scammers and fraudsters and, you know illegal kind of grifters because it was basicall…”

“The U.S. Government has, like, basically secretly signed a deal with him that this one billion dollar bounty that they have found from a hack of the Silk Road, they are crediting towards his debts to the U.S. Government, and so he has now effectively paid back…”

“Silk Road got famous because they had something like if you do like today's dollar it basically made Bitcoin popular because it was like eBay for drugs and something like ten billion dollars went through it in only two years since he started it.”

“Before he started the Silk Road, he had an online business called Goodwagon where he sold books and it didn't go so hot. Like the peak it made in revenue was like 10 grand in one month. And so his profit was very little.”

“That's 60 federal agents who were on there doing like fake sales or fake buys and bust.”

“They find him guilty and the judge sends, sentences him to like two life terms plus 40 years.”

“Yeah, so to be clear, he was never convicted of this. In fact, he was never even charged with putting out these hits.”

“Billy, his dad was Tim Draper, who eventually goes on to buy the Bitcoin. I think he was a billionaire already, but he bought the Bitcoin that Ross was arrested with because they, the government auctioned it off. And that Bitcoin is like worth like five billio…”

“70%.”

“Throughout this case, there's like three or four different FBI agents or like DEA agents who are convicted and go to prison because they started talking with Ross and getting into Bitcoin. And they eventually like started feeding him information about what the…”

“And one guy who did it, one guy who did it, I think his name is Carl force. I think he got sentenced to somebody six months. So like, what's that? Like six years.”

“This is like DEA estimates. So they say 1.2 billion dollars worth of illegal drug transit transactions took place.”

“So the reason why they suspected it was Mt. Gox was when they started, it accounted for like 75% of Mt. Gox's business.”

“I do think that he deserves time in prison. 10 to 20 years just for the drug charges and for creating Silk Road. But I think it's kind of bullshit that the judge sentenced him for the murder for hire or took that into account without actually trying him for it…”

“I think the Silk Road case is far more cut and dry than anyone thinks. I think Ross did it. I think Ross did everything.”

“Overnight, 21,000 Bitcoin, worth today about a hundred and fifty million dollars, went missing from Silk Road vendor accounts overnight.”

“What's little known is that he turned down a plea deal, and he went to trial, and he was sentenced by a judge to life in prison.”

“Sean Bridges had also been at that proffer session where Curtis had turned over his password and computer and credentials, and that night, Sean Bridges went home using Curtis Green's computer, username, credentials, and password, and drained Silk Road accounts…”