This is one article in a collection of 52 articles published weekly throughout 2023 on the basics of Bitcoin. The series is intended for people unfamiliar with Bitcoin or people wishing to enhance their understanding of the fundamentals that underpin the technology. Please contact us, if you have any questions or comments.
The search for Dread Pirate Roberts began almost as soon as the Silk Road went online. However, due to the IP masking features of the TOR network and bitcoin being used as the medium of exchange figuring out the identity of Dread Pirate Roberts was not an easy task. As a result of Dread Pirate Roberts’ vast array of criminal violations, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the IRS were all involved in the investigation to take down the mysterious kingpin of the Silk Road.
Investigators had trouble making progress on the identity of the Silk Road founder but were able to infiltrate the system and begin communicating with Dread Pirate Roberts through undercover agents. A clever IRS investigator finally caught the necessary break to unmask Dread Pirate Roberts. In early communications regarding the idea of the Silk Road, Dread Pirate Roberts used his real email address. The IRS investigator was able to tie this email account to Ross Ulbricht who was behind Dread Pirate Roberts!
Once law enforcement had enough evidence to believe Ross Ulbricht was a potential suspect, they began heavy surveillance of his daily whereabouts. Eventually, they set up an operation while he was in a San Francisco public library logged in as Dread Pirate Roberts to stage a fake domestic dispute among two agents working the case. When Ross Ulbricht got up to help quell the domestic dispute, agents were able to confiscate the computer while it was still open and logged in as Dread Pirate Roberts. Those were Ulbricht’s last moments as a free man.
Ross Ulbricht was convicted of distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering in a four week jury trial. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Additionally, he was ordered to forfeit a staggering $183,961,921.
Since the Silk Road shut down, Bitcoin has continuously found use cases for censorship resistance. As we previously discussed, Bitcoin’s public ledger allows anyone to follow any Bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred with exact precision. This makes Bitcoin a poor use for nefarious activity. However, anyone is free to transfer bitcoin to anyone for any reason making it an excellent tool for censorship resistant commerce. This is an incredibly powerful and useful feature of Bitcoin in an era where powerful elites want to control the narrative and quash open debate of myriad topics. This was recently seen in response to Canada’s tyrannical Covid-19 response which is what we will explore in our next article.
