How Silk Road changed Bitcoin forever: - In 2011, Ross Ulbricht launched Silk Road on the dark web under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts. His vision was simple: "A marketplace where anyone could buy and sell without banks or government control." - He chose $BTC as the only payment method. - Every transaction was made using BTC. - Silk Road even used escrow to protect buyers and sellers. - Most products were illegal drugs. - But users also sold: > art > books > clothing and other items. - Then a Gawker article exposed Silk Road to the world. - Overnight, its user base exploded. - By 2013, it had processed 1.2 million+ transactions worth over 9.5 million $BTC. - At one point, Silk Road accounted for roughly 5% of all Bitcoin transactions. - On October 1, 2013, the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht inside a San Francisco public library while he was logged into Silk Road. - The marketplace was shut down. - The FBI took over 170,000 BTC linked to the operation. - Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without parole. - In January 2025, he received a presidential pardon after serving more than 11 years. - It proved that money (crypto) could move anywhere in the world without asking anyone for permission.