Silk Road je bil testni poligon za trg Darknet za Bitcoin

To je uvodnik mnenja Jacoba Kozhipatta, YouTuberja in pisca.

Za nepoznavalce je bila Svilna pot a darknet tržnica, kjer so uporabniki kupovali in prodajali vse vrste izdelkov, vključno s tistimi, ki veljajo za nezakonite - največkrat droge.

Podporniki so trdili, da je Silk Road uporabila tehnologijo za ustvarjanje trgov, ki so nujno ločeni od korupcije vlad in velikih bank. Za kritike je bil trg sovražnik države, ki je omogočal prodajo nezakonitih substanc, ki so zdesetkale nešteta življenja.

For Bitcoiners, however, the marketplace was the first example of bitcoin being used as an actual currency — a mixed legacy as the website popularized the alternative currency, but also created a stigma surrounding digital currencies that lasts even today. So what exactly was Silk Road, and why did it play such an important role for bitcoin?

Kaj je bila Svilna pot?

Svileno pot je ustvaril in vodi Ross Ulbricht. Tržnico je ustvaril leta 2011 kot manifestacijo svoje libertarne filozofije, Zakoreninjen v zamislih avstrijskih ekonomistov kot Ludwig von Mises. Ulbricht believed that governments inherently utilize force to impede an individual’s sovereignty — a sentiment he believed manifested in the United States’ War on Drugs.

Ulbricht je verjel, da je ameriška vojna proti drogam ameriške davkoplačevalce stala milijarde dolarjev in je bila večji pobudnik nasilja kot droge same.

Ulbricht je aludiral na Silk Road in svojo motivacijo, da jo je ustvaril na svojem Linkedin profil, ko je pisal, je skušal ustvariti ekonomsko simulacijo, ki bi vladanim iz prve roke pokazala, kako živeti v svetu brez, kot sam opisuje, "uporabe pretirane sile."

It is important to note that the Silk Road explicitly forbade the sale of products or services, “who’s purpose is to harm or defraud,” e.g., child pornography, weapons grade plutonium or stolen credit cards. The U.S. government, though, reported that hekerske storitve so bile na voljo na spletni strani.

Zanimiv vidik Silk Roada je bil profesionalizem, ki ga je uporabila pri predstavitvi svojih prepovedanih snovi/storitev. Medtem ko je trgovina z drogami razvpita po nasilju in prodaji ponarejenih zdravil, je Silk Road preprodajalcem omogočila prodajo njihovih izdelkov preko pošte in kupcem sporočiti, ali izdelek, ki so ga kupili, prihaja od zakonitega prodajalca, kot je Silk Road uporabil sistem pregleda prodajalcev podobno drugim spletnim mestom za e-trgovino, kot sta Ebay ali Amazon. Nekateri so bili oboževalci tega, drugi, kot je newyorški senator Chuck Shumer, so bili ogorčeni na navidezno vzročno naravo nakupa drog prek platforme.

Oktobra 2013, Silk Road je bil zaprt. V tem času je spletna stran imela več 100,000 uporabnike in je vsak dan opravil na tisoče transakcij v vrednosti več deset milijonov izmenjanih dolarjev. Ross Ulbricht je bil kmalu obsojen sedmih kaznivih dejanj in prejel dosmrtno zaporno kazen brez možnosti pogojnega izpusta.

Bitcoin And The Silk Road

Central to Silk Road was the concept of buyers and sellers hiding their identities. Two technologies served as the marketplace’s agents of anonymity: the software Tor, and the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

Uporabniki bi uporabljali brskalnik Tor za dostop do temnega spleta, kjer bi bili njihovi naslovi IP, med drugimi digitalnimi lokatorji, skriti pred nadzorom tretjih oseb.

Čeprav je bilo skrivanje digitalnega naslova pomembno, ni rešilo problema anonimnega opravljanja transakcij. Identiteto je še vedno mogoče odkriti prek običajnih centraliziranih plačilnih procesorjev, npr Visa in Mastercard, who both work with the government to identify users engaged with illegal activities. This is where bitcoin played an important role.

At this time, bitcoin was still a nascent technology with few knowing the forensic accountability that the blockchain provides. Thus, bitcoin served as a means of exchange on Silk Road. Tens-of-thousands of users would exchange millions of dollars in bitcoin to purchase items on Silk Road.

Ko je bila Silk Road zaprta, 70,000 Bitcoin (zdaj vreden: 1.3 milijarde dolarjev) je bil zasežen s spletne strani. A Vokativ poročilo je podrobno opisalo obseg prodaje drog, ki se je zgodil na Silk Road: transakcije z marihuano so znašale več kot 46 milijonov dolarjev na Silk Roadu, medtem ko je bila prodaja heroina vredna približno 8.9 milijona dolarjev; kokaina znašal 17.4 milijona dolarjev.

Vpliv svilne ceste

The story of Silk Road has lasting effects on bitcoin and the greater cryptocurrency landscape.

Silk Road was the first example of bitcoin’s ability to be used as an actual currency — a true financial facilitator of exchange between individual parties. Silk Road pobranih prihodkov of roughly 9.5 million bitcoin since 2011, a jaw-dropping amount as only 11.75 million bitcoin existed at the time. In other terms, 80% of all bitcoin in existence went through Silk Road at the time it was shut down. Within dve uri of the news of Ulbricht’s arrest becoming public, the price of bitcoin tumbled from $140 to $110.

To this day, Silk Road is often used as an argument by cryptocurrency critics to show that bitcoin is primarily used as a facilitator of crime. This is best demonstrated through New York’s steep regulations, posebej BitLicense, ki je bil vzpostavljen leta 2014, kmalu po obsodbi Ulbrichta. Senator Schumer posebej poklican Bitcoin for its use on Silk Road stating: “[Bitcoin is] An online form of money laundering used to disguise the source of money, and to disguise who’s both selling and buying the drug.” This reputation has proven to be a lasting one, as Duke professor and former Federal Reserve regulator Lee Reiners kot pred kratkim as 2021 argued that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies should be banned for their use in facilitating crime.

Obviously, bitcoin bulls, like Tim Draper, vehemently disagree with this perspective. They argue that bitcoin’s immutable ledger actually makes it easier for the government to track criminal activity done via bitcoin. For example, the $4.5 billion hackers of Bitfinex, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, aka the “crocodile of Wall Street,” were outed to government officials while trying to launder their stolen bitcoin because of their blockchain transaction history. Moreover, many new cryptocurrencies market themselves anonymous alternatives to bitcoin, arguing the first cryptocurrency’s privacy components are insufficient.

Many bitcoin believers view Ross as a junak za gibanje in aktivno kampanjo za njegovo izpustitev v gibanju, imenovanem "Free Ross," vodi Ulbrichtova mati, Lyn. Lyn Ulbricht omenja, da nacionalni pogled na droge se je od obsodbe Ulbrichta spremenil. Marihuana, najbolj priljubljena droga, ki se prodaja na Silk Roadu, je v sodobni zahodni družbi bolj normalizirana. Ameriški predsednik Joe Biden pred kratkim razglasitve da bo vlada razveljavila vse zvezne obsodbe glede marihuane, in pozval zakonodajalce, naj ponovno razmislijo o zveznem pogledu na marihuano.

It is often people on the fringes of a society that first adopt new ideas and technologies. Many of the early 2000’s YouTube content creators, like Jeffrey Starr or Lucas Cruikshank, were members of the LGBTQ community. In Chinua Achebe’s famed novel, “Things Fall Apart,” the first members of the Igbo Tribe to convert to the then-novel idea of Christianity were the disaffected misanthropes of the tribe. Similarly, the first people to popularize bitcoin were — for better or worse — drug dealers and users who inarguably are on the fringe of our society.

To je gostujoča objava Jacoba Kozhipatta. Izražena mnenja so povsem njihova in ne odražajo nujno mnenja družbe BTC Inc. oz Bitcoin Magazine.