Mastering Blockchain

Chapter 8. Catch Me If You Can

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies offer a lot of promise. However, the path to success is littered with ruts and pitfalls. Ever since it was first implemented, there have been various scandals, hacks, and thefts involving Bitcoin.

It’s important to know about and understand these events, because the past is capable of repeating itself if history is not used as a guide. Although the issues we describe in this chapter may seem severe, in the long run they will be seen as mere bumps in the road leading to a world of opportunity.

Probably the most famous nefarious example was Silk Road, an anonymous, illicit marketplace on the dark web that used Bitcoin as a payment mechanism. Users would log in to Silk Road using Tor, an anonymous virtual private networking (VPN) software. Tor uses a global network of computers to route internet traffic so it is almost impossible to trace. This allows users to remain anonymous by obscuring identifying information like IP addresses.

In October 2013, after a long investigation, the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht for his role as the operator of Silk Road. They were able to catch Ulbricht by grabbing his encrypted laptop while it was open as he was working at a public library in San Francisco, California. The authorities were able to access everything on his computer, including incriminating information regarding the operations of the site. Ulbricht is now serving a double life sentence for operating what was at the time one ...