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A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.
Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market. It was launched in 2011 by its American founder Ross Ulbricht under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts". As part of the dark web, Silk Road operated as a hidden service on the Tor network, allowing users to buy and sell products and services between each other anonymously. All transactions were conducted with bitcoin, a cryptocurrency which aided in protecting user identities. The website was known for its illegal drug marketplace, among other illegal and legal product listings.
The bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer payment network that operates on a cryptographic protocol. Users send and receive bitcoins, the units of currency, by broadcasting digitally-signed messages to the network using bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet software. Transactions are recorded into a distributed, replicated, public database known as the blockchain, with consensus achieved by a proof-of-work system called mining. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous designer of the protocol, stated that design and coding of bitcoin began in 2007. The project was released in 2009 as open source software.
The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets: overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communicate and conduct business anonymously without divulging identifying information, such as a user's location. The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital asset that uses cryptography to control its creation and management rather than relying on central authorities. Originally designed as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is now primarily regarded as a store of value. The history of bitcoin started with its invention and implementation by Satoshi Nakamoto, who integrated many existing ideas from the cryptography community. Over the course of bitcoin's history, it has undergone rapid growth to become a significant store of value both on- and offline. From the mid-2010s, some businesses began accepting bitcoin in addition to traditional currencies.
Sheep Marketplace was an anonymous marketplace set up as a Tor hidden service. It launched in March 2013 and was one of the lesser known sites to gain popularity with the well publicized closure of the Silk Road marketplace later that year. It ceased operation in December 2013, when it announced it was shutting down after a vendor stole $6 million worth of users' bitcoins.
Ross William Ulbricht is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network and facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services. Ulbricht ran the site under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts", after the fictional character from The Princess Bride.
Mark Marie Robert Karpelès, also sometimes known by his online alias MagicalTux, is the former CEO of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. Born in France, he moved to Japan in 2009.
Operation Onymous was an international law enforcement operation targeting darknet markets and other hidden services operating on the Tor network.
Agora was a darknet market operating in the Tor network, launched in 2013 and shut down in August 2015.
Evolution was a darknet market operating on the Tor network. The site was founded by an individual known as 'Verto' who also founded the now defunct Tor Carding Forum. Evolution was active between 14th January 2014 and mid March 2015.
AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation Bayonet, it was relaunched in August 2021 by the self-described co-founder and security administrator DeSnake. The alleged original founder, Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen born on 19 October 1991, was found dead in his cell in Thailand several days after his arrest, with police suspecting suicide.
A darknet market is a commercial website on the dark web that operates via darknets such as Tor or I2P. They function primarily as black markets, selling or brokering transactions involving drugs, cyber-arms, weapons, counterfeit currency, stolen credit card details, forged documents, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, steroids, and other illicit goods as well as the sale of legal products. In December 2014, a study by Gareth Owen from the University of Portsmouth suggested the second most popular sites on Tor were darknet markets.
Utopia was a darknet market similar to The Silk Road that facilitated sale of illegal items such as narcotics, firearms, stolen bank account information and forged identity documents. Utopia was based on Black Market Reloaded and has ties to it.
Grams is a discontinued search engine for Tor based darknet markets launched in April 2014, and closed in December 2017. The service allowed users to search multiple darknet markets for products like drugs and guns from a simple search interface, and also provided the capability for its users to hide their transactions through its bitcoin tumbler Helix.
The Hub was a discussion forum on Tor hidden services on the dark web focused on darknet market reviews, cryptocurrency and security.
Deep Web: The Untold Story of Bitcoin and the Silk Road is a 2015 documentary-film directed by Alex Winter, chronicling events surrounding Silk Road, bitcoin and politics of the dark web.
United States virtual currency law is financial regulation as applied to transactions in virtual currency in the U.S. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has regulated and may continue to regulate virtual currencies as commodities. The Securities and Exchange Commission also requires registration of any virtual currency traded in the U.S. if it is classified as a security and of any trading platform that meets its definition of an exchange.
Variety Jones and Smedley (Smed) Charger are pseudonyms of individuals reported to have been closely involved with the founding of the darknet market Silk Road.
USBKill is anti-forensic software distributed via GitHub, written in Python for the BSD, Linux, and OS X operating systems. It is designed to serve as a kill switch if the computer on which it is installed should fall under the control of individuals or entities against the desires of the owner. It is free software, available under the GNU General Public License.
References
- 1 2 Branwen, Gwern (30 October 2013). "Black-market risks". gwern.net. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
- 1 2 Pangburn, DJ (August 26, 2013), The Deep Web's Newest Drug Mecca Is the Facebook of Virtual Black Markets, Vice, retrieved March 27, 2021
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ↑ Blazenhoff, Rusty (27 June 2013). "Atlantis, A Virtual Black Market For Illegal Goods & Services" . Retrieved 14 June 2015.
- ↑ Bartlett, Jamie (2015-06-02). The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld. Melville House. ISBN 9781612194905.
- ↑ Howell O'Neill, Patrick (20 September 2013). "Online black market Atlantis abruptly shuts down" . Retrieved 13 June 2015.
- 1 2 Martin, J. (2014). Drugs on the Dark Net: How Cryptomarkets are Transforming the Global Trade in Illicit Drugs. Hampshire: Palgrave Pivot. p. 34. ISBN 9781349485666.
- ↑ Biggs, John (21 September 2013). "Atlantis, The Flashy Silk Road Alternative, Shuts Down" . Retrieved 13 June 2015.
- 1 2 Martin, Will (2014). Black Market Cryptocurrencies: The rise of bitcoin alternatives that offer true anonymity. Will Martin. p. 29. ISBN 9781500195618.
- ↑ Greenberg, Andy (2015-01-23). "Here's the Secret Silk Road Journal From the Laptop of Ross Ulbricht". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028 . Retrieved 2020-03-23.
- ↑ Ormsby, Eileen (26 September 2013). "The Fall of Atlantis – a Moderator tells" . Retrieved 14 June 2015.
