Silk Road Bitcoins Seized by Feds....Can or How to spend it

[bocceball1]

When the Feds seize drugs and money from drug dealers .....they just use it (or at least confiscated money) to fund future operations.'

Well, recently they busted online drug dealer ...called Silk Road. Netted them 3.3 million dollars in Bitcoins....not to mention the $80 million or so in bitcoins they’ve yet to seize from the personal account of the man who allegedly ran the online drug bazaar!

So now they have all this money that only exists on the internet,,,,,What will they do?????

[pancakeman]

They'll give 20,000 bitcoins to the Fed; this will allow the Fed to lend out 85billions bitcoins per month.

(The Fed has a special formula for multiplying bitcoins)

[RichCor]

My guess is they will try to use the block chains and trace the currency transactions back to the pseudonyms of their previous owners. They want to track who controls the largest caches of bitcoins and where and to whom they're distributed.

Those millions of legitimate bitcoins leave a nice breadcrumb trail.

[pancakeman]

My guess is they will try to use the block chains and trace the currency transactions back to the pseudonyms of their previous owners. They want to track who controls the largest caches of bitcoins and where and to whom they're distributed.

Those millions of legitimate bitcoins leave a nice breadcrumb trail.

Or they could simply look through the Silk Road database (as they appear to have seized the server) and pay a visit to all the addresses listed in the private messages and sales.

[moradave]

Are the Feds really concerned about a small (so far) market in legal (so far, except in Thailand) BitCoins? I think they are more concerned with the sale of illegal drugs on Silk Road.

As to what the Feds can do with the Bitcoins. They can convert them to dollars with about a 15% loss in face value.

[bartender100]

The guy that run this operation must have been a bit of an idiot not to have spread his wealth around a bit, he must have known they would catch up with him sooner or later. Could have stashed it in gold or offshore banks, or one of hundred of ways to hide his cash. Unless of course what they seized was just the tip of the iceberg

All that hard work down the drain, mind you he wont get a lot of free time to spend anything in the next 30 years

[ajarnpot]

my suspicion is silk road server will be in sealed room with magnets to wipe. Also bitcoins are still encryped so feds can't touch. The owner is savvy enough to have taken all sorts of precautions so I don't beleive much of the feds reports of seizure of servers etc

[pancakeman]

my suspicion is silk road server will be in sealed room with magnets to wipe. Also bitcoins are still encryped so feds can't touch. The owner is savvy enough to have taken all sorts of precautions so I don't beleive much of the feds reports of seizure of servers etc

Nope. The owner was savy enough to use his real full-name gmail address when initially promoting the site back in 2011...I'm guessing there were no wiping magnets or sealed rooms.lol

Plus the fact that there have been like 20 arrests already makes it pretty clear that FBI has the full silkroad server.

[metisdead]

A post containing a link to another forum has been removed.

[Vo Nguyen Giap]

Are the Feds really concerned about a small (so far) market in legal (so far, except in Thailand) BitCoins? I think they are more concerned with the sale of illegal drugs on Silk Road.

As to what the Feds can do with the Bitcoins. They can convert them to dollars with about a 15% loss in face value.

bitcoins thai legal?

note that https://www.mtgox.com/ the biggest exchange trader in bitcoins has accounts that can be traded and held in baht at this very moment.

note that clicking that mtgox link above on this forum will not take you to the right place. but to http://mtgot.com/

perhaps best search for it in a reliable not bent or fraudulent place.

or perhaps copy and paste the text of the link into your browser.

this may also be of interest https://bitcoin.co.th/news/ (assuming it clicks to the right place)

[moradave]

Are the Feds really concerned about a small (so far) market in legal (so far, except in Thailand) BitCoins? I think they are more concerned with the sale of illegal drugs on Silk Road.

As to what the Feds can do with the Bitcoins. They can convert them to dollars with about a 15% loss in face value.

bitcoins thai legal?

note that https://www.mtgox.com/ the biggest exchange trader in bitcoins has accounts that can be traded and held in baht at this very moment.

note that clicking that mtgox link above on this forum will not take you to the right place. but to http://mtgot.com/

perhaps best search for it in a reliable not bent or fraudulent place.

OK, I stand corrected. BitCoins MAY be legal or illegal in Thailand. MtGox is not the ultimate authority on legality in Thailand. Anyhow, what does it matter. Prostitution is also sort of illegal in Thailand.

[infinity11]

Silkroads and the deep/dark web as any black market is a fascinating use of free market system and supply and demand.

I know nothing about it, never used them, only looked once or twice.

I can not help but think if the authorities want to catch you they can/will but i also think many have gotten away with it and i hear the merchants are often very reliable.

Does anyone have the balls to post their good/bad experiences, and am i allowed to ask about that?

Fell free to PM.

[nikster]

Dread pirate roberts made a few stupid mistakes. Such as using his real name when asking questions on a public forum that only the owner if silk road would want to know. I dont really understand why he remained in the USA either...

Of course, being dread pirate roberts, he'll return ...

Its inevitable that the next silk road will be run by some russian hackers. It will be a shallow and short lived victory for the feds.

[Vo Nguyen Giap]

perhaps someone can make some sense of this ramble http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkroadUNcensored/comments/1p0ogt/time_to_let_the_cat_out_of_the_hat/

[Chicog]

my suspicion is silk road server will be in sealed room with magnets to wipe. Also bitcoins are still encryped so feds can't touch. The owner is savvy enough to have taken all sorts of precautions so I don't beleive much of the feds reports of seizure of servers etc

Nope. The owner was savy enough to use his real full-name gmail address when initially promoting the site back in 2011...I'm guessing there were no wiping magnets or sealed rooms.lol

Plus the fact that there have been like 20 arrests already makes it pretty clear that FBI has the full silkroad server.

The Silk Road takedown was not long after someone discovered that Tor, which was supposed to be impregnable, had been infiltrated. No guesses as to who by, maybe Ed Snowden knows.

[wwex]

I dont think they have the 80 million, or 120 million now. unless they torture the password out of him that will be waiting for him if he gets out of jail

[Satcommlee]

They will use them to subscribe to other illegal services and/or tempt individuals in order to gain trust, as part of future investigations.