On its surface, Andy Greenburg’s new book, Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency, is a standard crime story. Fans of true crime podcasts will enjoy the crypto version and get a seat in the Federal Bureau of Investigation van as United States federal agents track down criminals through their crypto transactions. The first story recounted is that of a crooked Drug Enforcement Agency agent who stole funds from the online drug market Silk Road. It also addresses the hunt for Dread Pirate Roberts, aka Ross Ulbricht — Silk Road’s founder. Ross’ operational security …

A collaborative NFT project from belagued Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and pseudonymous digital artist Pak is set to drop next week. Assange has been confined in a London prison since April 2019 after his asylum status in the Ecuadorian embassy of London was terminated. The following month he was indicted on 17 counts of espionage in the Eastern District Court of Virginia relating to classified documents he published on Wikileaks. His legal team is currently fighting an extradition case which could see him face the charges in the United States and spend the rest of his life behind bars. The …

Silk Roads lead to nonfungile tokens Bidding for a 1/1 NFT auction created by imprisoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has surpassed 261 Ether (ETH), $1.17 million at the time of writing. The NFT depicts a hand-drawn illustration from Ulbricht of a psychedelic eye, and is part of a collection of writings and nine other artworks he created, some while in prison, that are included as part of the NFT sale. The auction kicked off on day one of the Art Basil Miami art fair on Dec. 2 and is being hosted by SuperRare. The auction is set to conclude …

According to The Daily Beast, outgoing United States President Donald Trump is considering granting clemency to Ross Ulbricht — the founder and operator of the pioneering darknet market, Silk Road. Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 and received two life sentences without parole for non-violent offenses in 2015. The anonymous sources relied on in the report claim that the White House counsel’s office has been reviewing documents related to Ulbricht’s case, and that the president has been made aware of the situation. Two sources claim that Trump has privately expressed sympathy for Ulbricht and has considered his name for the next …

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s story is coming to the silver screen in 2021 following an announcement from major entertainment company Lionsgate. According to Deadline, Lionsgate has acquired the rights to the Silk Road movie and plans to release the feature in theaters and online starting on Feb. 19. The film will reportedly be based on the 2014 Rolling Stone article Dead End on Silk Road, focusing on the lead up to Ulbricht’s arrest as the founder of the darknet marketplace. Nick Robinson, the 25-year-old American actor from Jurassic World, will portray Ulbricht, who is now 36 and serving two …

Former police chief Yuri Zaitsev was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for acting as a bounty hunter for a dark web marketplace. In December 2018, Zaitsev was working as the leader of his unit within the Main Directorate for Drugs Control of the Republic of Khakassia — a law enforcement division analogous to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. At that time, he initiated contact with the operator of a darknet marketplace, offering to help hunt down a man who had appropriated drugs that were entrusted to him for placement in dead drops. In Russia, unlike …

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of SilkRoad, has issued a short follow-up to his essay on MakerDAO (MKR) and how it could be redesigned and improved. The follow-up amounts to a small correction to an assumption he made earlier about the Maker system. In his essay, he was puzzled that the DAI Savings Rate, a reward for “staking” the stablecoin, was higher than what DAI minters paid as interest rate. Indeed this is not the case as the savings rate is obtained from stability fee payments. Raising it above that level would eventually bankrupt the protocol. “I had received values for …

The ‘Free Ross’ movement has hired a billboard in New York’s Times Square as part of its campaign for the release of the Silk Road darknet market founder Ross Ulbricht. According to the Twitter account ‘Clemency for Ross’ the billboard will display the message and image for several months. The account emphasized that the billboard was funded by “a generous supporter” and not from donations to the site. Ulbricht is currently into his seventh year behind bars in a double life sentence. Without clemency he will never be released. ‘Free Ross’ billboard sprouts in Times Square Ulbricht, now 36 years …

April 28, New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) announced that it is adding a former Silk Road investigator as general counsel. The Department regulates financial services and products, which include cryptocurrency-related businesses. It awards the two types of licenses that many crypto businesses seek — a money transmitter license and a BitLicense. Previous experience: Silk Road, cryptocurrency, FIFA The announcement quotes the superintendent of financial services Linda A. Lacewell on the past achievements of the new general counsel Richard Weber: “Rich brings unquestioned integrity, legal acumen, and management experience to DFS. His extensive leadership experience and depth of …

Bitcoin has had a rough week, down around 9 percent and trading below $6,700. Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, believes we’re in a bear market that could even take the price under $3,200. Ulbricht is serving two life sentences for money laundering, computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics. Mike Novogratz disagrees. The famed investor and CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., is seeing greater adoption of Bitcoin, including among hedge funds and high-net worth individuals. He’s shorting stocks but believes “this is the time for Bitcoin.” It’s certainly time for debt. The US national debt has now …

Ross Ulbricht turns 36 years old today. This will be his seventh birthday in incarceration. Ulbricht is the convicted felon serving two life sentences plus 40 years for his role in creating the Silk Road, the online contraband market notorious for its associations with cryptocurrency. Ulbricht says Silk Road was initially envisioned as a libertarian paradise, but it eventually went sideways: “Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness, however they individually saw fit. What it turned into was, in part, a convenient way for people to …

A petition calling on the White House to release Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the dark web marketplace Silk Road, has gathered more than 275,000 signatures. FreeRoss.org — an initiative created by a group of Ulbricht’s family, friends and supporters — has said that the momentum continues to grow and that they feel that a solution “could come soon.” Through an update on the online petitions website released on March 19, FreeRoss.org claimed Ross is “doing fine”. They have also reported that visits were canceled for 30 days, as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic. The online petition hopes …