The Presumption of Innocence Podcast: Episode 39 - Unthreading the Silk Road: A Conversation With Author Nick Bilton
A Conversation with Ben Simpfendorfer on Asia Restructurings
On November 7, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had seized more than $3.36 billion worth of bitcoin as part of a continuing investigation into a 10-year fraud involving the Silk Road dark web...more
We have all heard the stories. Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and my personal favorite, Illsa Lund and Rick Blaine. Everyone loves a great love story. A developing romance leading to an emotionally pleasing and...more
Twenty venture capitalists gathered in Silicon Valley last week to discuss the impact of blockchain technology, including digital currency, on financial services and venture capital. The 20 VCs represent an equal number of...more
On May 31, 2017, the Second Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in the “Silk Road” case, United States v. Ulbricht, (15-1815-cr) (2nd Cir. May 31, 2017) (Newman, Lynch, Droney)....more
Below is a summary of some of the significant legal and regulatory actions that occurred over the past week. This alert is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all such developments, but rather a selection of...more
J. K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter included an array of amazing artifacts; our personal favorites were the books and pictures that changed themselves. Two decades later, a world of Kindles and iPads echoes the wonders of...more
Silk Road was a notorious black market for narcotics that used seemingly untraceable digital currencies (i.e., Bitcoins) to facilitate illegal activities on the “dark web.” Last week, former Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”)...more
On June 26, 2015 at the ABA National Institute on Bitcoin and Other Digital Currencies, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell sent a targeted warning to financial institutions that deal with Bitcoin and other virtual...more
On May 29, 2015, after a lengthy criminal investigation and multi-week trial, Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind Silk Road—one of the most famous enterprises to utilize Bitcoin currency—was sentenced to life in prison in a...more
The founder of Silk Road, the black market website where illegal goods were bought with bitcoin, was found guilty on all 7 counts, including money laundering, drug trafficking and computer hacking. While this is an...more
When Is Bitcoin “Money” Versus a “Security”? In motions involving a high-profile criminal prosecution with ties to Silk Road and a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement action, two federal courts have clarified...more
On August 19, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a ruling in the case of Robert Faiella, holding that bitcoins are “money,” citing the plain meaning of the term in The...more
In another installment of the continuing saga surrounding the shuttering of the Silk Road online marketplace and arrest of its alleged creator and operator, Ross William Ulbricht (Ulbricht), a Southern District of New York...more
As reported in our earlier post, the U.S. Government has begun its first ever auction of Bitcoins. The Bitcoins to be auctioned were seized in connection with the shutdown of the Silk Road - the "dark net" site that served as...more
The US Marshals Service (USMS) announced that it will hold an online auction on June 27 to sell bitcoins contained in wallet files seized from the servers of Silk Road, the “deep web” black market shut down by the Federal...more
For two decades, during the 1620s and 1630s, Europe fell into the grip of “tulip mania.” At its peak in 1637, tulip bulbs were sold for more than 10 times the average worker’s annual income—enough to buy a house. Within...more
Last week’s arrests of Robert Faiella, an alleged seller on online marketplace Silk Road, and Charlie Shrem, the CEO of the startup BitInstant, marked a recent round in a series of law enforcement actions against what the...more
The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced the forfeiture of approximately 29,655 Bitcoins in connection with the seizure of the Silk Road website....more
Another set of Bitcoin-related arrests for failing to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act. Interestingly, investors in one of the companies include the Winkelvoss twins. Anyone who is involved in Bitcoin or other virtual...more
Bitcoin and other decentralized, math-based virtual currencies emerged in 2013 as nascent challenges to traditional payment systems, drawing widespread public attention, venture capital investment, and regulatory scrutiny....more
“Virtual currencies”, and bitcoin in particular, have recently received much attention from law enforcement agencies, the business community, the financial sector and government authorities, all of which are trying to...more
The advent of the Internet is not all positive – criminals like to use the Internet and they are very good at doing so. The same might be said for Bitcoin, the new raging virtual currency....more
The virtual currency industry is in the news once again following the October 1, 2013, Federal Bureau of Investigation’s shutdown of the “Silk Road” website. As part of the shutdown of the well-known underworld bazaar, the...more