Greyhawk posted:

I've lost everything. (self.BitcoinMarkets)
submitted 9 hours ago by lostitallthrowaway

I got into cryptocurrencies in early 2014 at 18 years old and managed to get to 40 btc after starting with nothing through trading a few alts that I thought had potential. I was so excited about the future, I loved the technology, I became the annoying guy who always talks about BTC to his friends. I wanted to try hand at BTC/USD trading and in the span of three weeks I now own 0 BTC. I chased losses, I didn't sleep, I skipped school, I didn't see my family or friends and eventually It just all went away. This is the most money I've ever had in my life and now it's gone and I can't handle it, I'm crying all the time and I can barely get out of bed to eat anything. I want to die, I want it to just all be over and not to be such a failure. I'm so ashamed, I can't tell anyone around me, I'm so embarassed. My parents are barely middle class, telling them that I lost this kind of money would make things so much worse. Oh god what do I do

quote:

[–]bucketofpurple 0 points 3 hours ago

Did he or did he not KNOWINGLY launder money?

[–]6to23 4 points 2 hours ago

His business "BitInstant" knowingly provided Bitcoin exchange service to admins/users of Silkroad, which at the time was unclear if it were illegal.

[–]Vultatio 8 points 2 hours ago*

It was pretty clear selling drugs online was illegal. And knowingly providing financial services for a site that sells drugs is also illegal. I don't think anything was unclear.

edit: which is why he admitted it and plead guilty

[–]skolsuper 7 points an hour ago

Did the site sell drugs? Or did they just facilitate the sale of drugs? Is that splitting hairs? A guy I know has bought drugs on Facebook. Does Facebook sell drugs? Where's the line?

[–]bucketofpurple 1 point an hour ago

I wonder how they got in touch with him...
[–]6to23 1 point an hour ago

Silkroad admins sold 0 drugs, some silkroad users sold drugs. I mean where do you draw the line of a market place being illegal? Silkroad had plenty of legal listings, eBay also has plenty of illegal stuff(mostly brand name knockoff items) for sale on their website, how about craigslist, people have died from craigslist scams. If my business provided service to ebay/craigslist, and ebay/craigslist was later shutdown by FBI, I could be later held accountable for it?

[–]schism1 1 point an hour ago

I mean where do you draw the line

There is no line. It was intentionally left as a grey area.

trucutru posted:

there was a time were i thought this kind of people were being willfully dense, nowadays i realize they are just dumb dudes parroting stuff

Boxturret posted:

remember how ross grew and sold mushrooms over silkroad to get it started and kept meticulous records of it? bitcoiners don't

Boxturret posted:

FMguru posted:

didnt sr itself have regular drug-themed promotions and contests and prizes, like an annual 4-20 day?

FMguru posted:

prisons already have functioning economies built around non-fiat currencies, like packs of cigarettes or tins of sardines or his punk white rear end. why would they need another?

quote:

Two former federal agents are expected to be arrested on Monday on charges of stealing money while working undercover on an investigation into Silk Road, the once-thriving black market website for drug dealing, a document shows.

The former agents are Carl Mark Force IV, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, who worked for the Secret Service.

Mr. Force is being charged with wire fraud, theft of government property and money laundering, and Mr. Bridges is being charged with wire fraud and money laundering, according to an affidavit filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco.

The charges stem from their roles in an undercover operation that led to charges in the Silk Road investigation and the shutting down of the website.

Mr. Force, while investigating Silk Road, “stole and converted to his own personal use a sizeable amount of bitcoins,” the digital currency that was used by buyers and sellers on the website, which he obtained in his undercover capacity, the government said.

“Rather than turning those bitcoin over to the government, Force deposited them into his own personal accounts,” the government said.

theflyingexecutive posted:

grey thread:


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/n...ts-charges.html

FMguru posted:

didnt sr itself have regular drug-themed promotions and contests and prizes, like an annual 4-20 day?

Boxturret posted:

remember how ross grew and sold mushrooms over silkroad to get it started and kept meticulous records of it? bitcoiners don't

theflyingexecutive posted:

Carl Mark Force IV

FMguru posted:

didnt sr itself have regular drug-themed promotions and contests and prizes, like an annual 4-20 day?

univbee posted:

Oh come the gently caress on, this can't possibly be a real name.

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

i don't see how that has anything to do with anything, if i hold a drug-themed party and drugs are sold at that party does that make me a drug dealer???

JamesieAB posted:

Has anyone said blockchaingang yet?

quote:

Two former federal agents are expected to be arrested on Monday on charges of stealing money while working undercover on an investigation into Silk Road, the once-thriving black market website for drug dealing, a document shows.

The former agents are Carl Mark Force IV, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, who worked for the Secret Service.

Mr. Force is being charged with wire fraud, theft of government property and money laundering; and Mr. Bridges is being charged with wire fraud and money laundering, according to an affidavit filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco.

The charges stem from the agents’ role in one of the federal investigations into Silk Road; a separate Manhattan-based investigation ultimately led to the filing of charges against the website’s founder, Ross W. Ulbricht, who was convicted last month on numerous counts. The website was also shut down by the authorities.

Mr. Force, while investigating Silk Road, “stole and converted to his own personal use a sizable amount of Bitcoins,” the digital currency that was used by buyers and sellers on the website, which he obtained in his undercover capacity, the government said.

“Rather than turning those Bitcoin over to the government, Force deposited them into his own personal accounts,” the government said.

The charges against the two men are detailed in a 50-page criminal complaint that was unsealed on Monday. The complaint is signed by Tigran Gambaryan, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service, and says that the investigation of the agents was handled by the United States attorney’s office in San Francisco and the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department in Washington.

The document describes both former agents as members of a Baltimore-based task force that investigated Silk Road. The website had been the subject of investigations in several cities, including Chicago and New York.

The Baltimore investigation resulted in an indictment of Mr. Ulbricht on a charge of murder for hire, but that case has remained pending and the evidence in support of it was kept out of the New York trial, apparently because of the investigation into the agents.

Mr. Force had been employed as a D.E.A. special agent for about 15 years; he resigned in May 2014, shortly after the investigation into his activities began, the document says. Mr. Bridges had been a special agent of the Secret Service for about six years until he abruptly resigned on March 18, after learning he was a subject of the investigation, the document says.

At the time charges were announced against Mr. Ulbricht, the man behind the site, in October 2013 and the website was shut down, the authorities called Silk Road “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet.”

Several thousand drug dealers and other vendors used the site from January 2011 through October 2013 to sell hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other illicit goods to more than 100,000 buyers, according to a criminal complaint filed in United States District Court in Manhattan.

The website generated more than $213 million in revenue during that period, and Mr. Ulbricht, operating under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, took millions of dollars in commissions, the authorities charged.

Much of Silk Road’s allure to buyers and sellers was anonymity: The website operated on a hidden part of the Internet, out of the glare of law enforcement, and deals were transacted in Bitcoins, a digital currency that can be as hard to trace as cash.

Mr. Ulbricht’s defense lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, argued during the trial that his client was not Dread Pirate Roberts, a character drawn from the book and movie “The Princess Bride.” Mr. Dratel conceded that Silk Road had been his client’s idea, but that Mr. Ulbricht had turned the website over to others before being lured back as a “fall guy” to be arrested.

Mr. Ulbricht was convicted on Feb. 4 of multiple counts; four of the charges, including distributing narcotics on the Internet and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, carry potential life sentences. The judge, Katherine B. Forrest, is scheduled to sentence Mr. Ulbricht on May 15.

At the trial, the government also accused Mr. Ulbricht of commissioning the murders of five people whom he saw as threats to his enterprise. Although the prosecutors say they found no evidence that anyone was harmed, they cited the murders-for-hire as evidence that Mr. Ulbricht was willing to use violence to protect his lucrative operation.

MORE CURLY FRIES posted:

did anyone post about charlie shrem wanting to invent a bank for prison so he can use bitcoin

because charlie shrem invented a bank so he can use bitcoin in prison

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-for-prison

Linguica posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/nyregion/silk-road-case-federal-agents-charges.html

Ruining your career... but for bitcoins!

MORE CURLY FRIES posted:

did anyone post about charlie shrem wanting to invent a bank for prison so he can use bitcoin

because charlie shrem invented a bank so he can use bitcoin in prison

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-for-prison

evilweasel posted:

lawl he's come up with the idea of a bank, but it has nothing to do with bitcoin

at all

like he seems to have the idea that accounting was invented by bitcoin

pylb posted:

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf

Karl Marx Force IV was blackmailing DPR using the name "French Maid" and also worked for a bitcoin exchange (coinmkt)

this whole thing feels like its two days early