Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Bitcoin Encryption The Almighty Buck IT

Bitcoin-Based Drug Market Silk Road Thriving With $2 Million In Monthly Sales 498

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Every day or so of the last six months, Carnegie Mellon computer security professor Nicolas Christin has crawled and scraped Silk Road, the Tor- and Bitcoin-based underground online market for illegal drug sales. Now Christin has released a paper (PDF) on his findings, which show that the site's business is booming: its number of sellers, who offer everything from cocaine to ecstasy, has jumped from around 300 in February to more than 550. Its total sales now add up to around $1.9 million a month. And its operators generate more than $6,000 a day in commissions for themselves, compared with around $2,500 in February. Most surprising, perhaps, is that buyers rate the sellers on the site as relatively trustworthy, despite the fact that no real identities are used. Close to 98% of ratings on the site are positive."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Bitcoin-Based Drug Market Silk Road Thriving With $2 Million In Monthly Sales

Comments Filter:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Working...