Libertarian Dream? A Site Where You Buy Drugs With Bitcoins
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Ron Paul spoke in favor of drug legalization[1] and is highly critical of the US monetary system[2].
Likewise, someone who advocates for legalized private currency isn't a supporter of illegal, black-market currencies designed for hired crime, money laundering and tax evasion. The disconnect is even greater when you consider that Ron Paul, and advocates of "sound money", advocate for commodity backed currency, while BitCoin is backed by nothing and is as "unsound" as money can possibly get.
And if you narrow it down a little more still, and think in terms of the "techno-libertarian" mindset, something like this probably is pretty close to a "dream" to many techno-libertarian types.
That said, it probably wasn't necessary to put the Libertarian bit in the headline. Whether it was intended to be insulting to Libertarians or not, is unclear to me.
Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them
Bitcoins may be a better candidate for selling virtual goods like stolen credit card numbers, security exploits, and secrets. But even then the money/goods from cashing out bitcoins have to go somewhere. If some dude goes from broke to millionaire with a single large deposit and he's going to be on the fed's radar for life.
With Silk Road, the drugs have to go somewhere. And there's probably a paper trail leading to the origin of the package as well unless the dude is driving across the country before dropping it in the mail Ted Kaczynski style.
People have been raided based on where a package was shipped, in absence of proof of payment (I recall reading a story, I believe linked from HN, about a family whose dog ended up getting killed in the resulting raid, following a box of drugs being delivered to the wrong house as part of a sting). Anonymity just makes it really easy to get away with setting people up.
Every Libertarian I know is in favor of decriminalizing most drugs but not a single one is a drug user himself.
I imagine they'd make it illegal to accept bitcoins as payment, which would remove all legitimate users from the market, but illegal drug buyers and sellers may still use it as payment, along with underground bitcoin/cash currency exchanges.
The anonymity of bitcoins may prove to create great enough demand, and help decentralize the illegal drug trade.
Sure, but now you've gotta participate in two illegal operations instead of only one. Instead of exchanging cash for drugs you're now exchanging cash for bitcoins and bitcoins for drugs. You've doubled your chances of getting caught. And unlike the drug dealer, the cash-to-bitcoin converter doesn't have much of a profit margin, so what the hell is his incentive for staying in this illegal business?
What would an underground bitcoin/cash currency exchange look like anyway? A smoky room? There's no way to anonymously and untraceably recieve cash on the internet, is there?
For instance, for those in the US, the most sane method of exchange for US currency is setting up an account with Dwolla tied to your bank account, then use that to transact thru MtGox. Dwolla is US based. Your financial institution is US based. If you have difficulty getting money in/out, or that becomes strictly a black market activity, well it will likely sink the value of bitcoin.
They go after Mt. Gox.
They go after the very small number of payment networks that let you trade Bitcoin for coin.
This may push the trade of bitcoin underground, or more likely push both of the drug dealers using bitcoin to use actual dollars.