tonight,â Ross wrote.
âIâm not sure how this stuff works,â Richard wrote back.
âi wish i did,â Ross responded.
One of the people who visited the site while it was temporarily offline was the host of a popular libertarian radio program in New Hampshire, Free Talk Live , who was broadcasting live at the time. Ian Freeman and his cohost had been introduced to Bitcoin earlier in the year by Gavin Andresen, a regular listener who thoughtthe show could reach an audience that would be sympathetic to Bitcoin. At a lunch with Gavin, the hosts of Free Talk Live had shown interest, but ultimately went away unconvinced. Who was going to have an incentive to use this? they asked. Their views, though, changed dramatically less than two months later when they learned about Silk Road.
âAll of the sudden my interest has been piqued,â Freeman said on the air.
Freeman and his cohosts did their best to explain how Bitcoin and Silk Road worked and they debated the possibility that Silk Road was a trap set up by the CIA. But the hosts agreed that Silk Road was something utterly new, harnessing Bitcoin to enable a type of transaction that was, for all intents and purposes, not possible beforeâan online drug purchase. Whatâs more, getting cocaine or LSD delivered to your homeâor a rented mailboxâseemed highly preferable to meeting a sketchy dealer at some dark rendezvous.
When Freeman tried to get on Silk Road while he was on the air, and found it was down, he wondered if it had all been a mirage. But when he had been on the site shortly before, he had seen 151 registered users and 38 listings. Someone had recently delivered ecstasy tablets from Europe to the United States, taped to the inside of a birthday card. Here was something that could take advantage of Bitcoinâs unique qualities and help it grow.
âThis could be the killer application for Bitcoin,â Freeman said.
When Ross learned about the broadcast a day later, he had gotten Silk Road up again, and he wrote to his friend Richard Bates with a mixture of fear and pride.
âmy site had a 40 minute spot on a national radio program,â Ross wrote in a chat session with Richard.
âfriggin crazy, you gotta keep my secret buddy,â Ross added.
âI havenât told anyone and I donât intend to,â Richard wrote back.
âi know i can trust you,â Ross responded.
O NE OF THE many listeners who heard the conversation about Silk Road on Free Talk Live was Roger Ver, an American entrepreneur living in Tokyo, just a few miles from Mark Karpeles.
In comparison with many Bitcoin aficionados, Roger had a rather happy upbringing in the Bay Area, where he grew up with one sister and two half brothers. He had been a natural at the strategy game Magic: The Gathering âso good that he traveled on an amateur circuit to play competitively. But he was also on a wrestling team, and he and his brother both spent many afternoons fine-tuning their muscle carsâRogerâs, a Mercury Capri; his brotherâs, a Mustang.
At the age of twenty, Roger signed up to run for the California state assembly as a libertarian candidate, vowing never to take a government salary. In the midst of his campaign for the assembly, federal agents arrested Roger for peddling Pest Control Report 2000âa mix between a firecracker and a pest repellentâon eBay. Roger had bought the product himself through the mail and he and his lawyer became convinced that the government was targeting Roger because of remarks he had made at a political rally, where he had called federal agents murderers. He would be the only person arrested for selling Pest Control Report 2000 through the mail and the prosecutors showed no leniency. Hit with felony charges,he was sentenced to ten months in prison after agreeing to plead guilty.
The experience turned Rogerâs libertarian ideas from a political cause to a personal
âIâm not sure how this stuff works,â Richard wrote back.
âi wish i did,â Ross responded.
One of the people who visited the site while it was temporarily offline was the host of a popular libertarian radio program in New Hampshire, Free Talk Live , who was broadcasting live at the time. Ian Freeman and his cohost had been introduced to Bitcoin earlier in the year by Gavin Andresen, a regular listener who thoughtthe show could reach an audience that would be sympathetic to Bitcoin. At a lunch with Gavin, the hosts of Free Talk Live had shown interest, but ultimately went away unconvinced. Who was going to have an incentive to use this? they asked. Their views, though, changed dramatically less than two months later when they learned about Silk Road.
âAll of the sudden my interest has been piqued,â Freeman said on the air.
Freeman and his cohosts did their best to explain how Bitcoin and Silk Road worked and they debated the possibility that Silk Road was a trap set up by the CIA. But the hosts agreed that Silk Road was something utterly new, harnessing Bitcoin to enable a type of transaction that was, for all intents and purposes, not possible beforeâan online drug purchase. Whatâs more, getting cocaine or LSD delivered to your homeâor a rented mailboxâseemed highly preferable to meeting a sketchy dealer at some dark rendezvous.
When Freeman tried to get on Silk Road while he was on the air, and found it was down, he wondered if it had all been a mirage. But when he had been on the site shortly before, he had seen 151 registered users and 38 listings. Someone had recently delivered ecstasy tablets from Europe to the United States, taped to the inside of a birthday card. Here was something that could take advantage of Bitcoinâs unique qualities and help it grow.
âThis could be the killer application for Bitcoin,â Freeman said.
When Ross learned about the broadcast a day later, he had gotten Silk Road up again, and he wrote to his friend Richard Bates with a mixture of fear and pride.
âmy site had a 40 minute spot on a national radio program,â Ross wrote in a chat session with Richard.
âfriggin crazy, you gotta keep my secret buddy,â Ross added.
âI havenât told anyone and I donât intend to,â Richard wrote back.
âi know i can trust you,â Ross responded.
O NE OF THE many listeners who heard the conversation about Silk Road on Free Talk Live was Roger Ver, an American entrepreneur living in Tokyo, just a few miles from Mark Karpeles.
In comparison with many Bitcoin aficionados, Roger had a rather happy upbringing in the Bay Area, where he grew up with one sister and two half brothers. He had been a natural at the strategy game Magic: The Gathering âso good that he traveled on an amateur circuit to play competitively. But he was also on a wrestling team, and he and his brother both spent many afternoons fine-tuning their muscle carsâRogerâs, a Mercury Capri; his brotherâs, a Mustang.
At the age of twenty, Roger signed up to run for the California state assembly as a libertarian candidate, vowing never to take a government salary. In the midst of his campaign for the assembly, federal agents arrested Roger for peddling Pest Control Report 2000âa mix between a firecracker and a pest repellentâon eBay. Roger had bought the product himself through the mail and he and his lawyer became convinced that the government was targeting Roger because of remarks he had made at a political rally, where he had called federal agents murderers. He would be the only person arrested for selling Pest Control Report 2000 through the mail and the prosecutors showed no leniency. Hit with felony charges,he was sentenced to ten months in prison after agreeing to plead guilty.
The experience turned Rogerâs libertarian ideas from a political cause to a personal
Similar Books
