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Comment by rplnt | Hacker News Reader

> and will receive a sentence that will amount to life in prison

Does this contain an attempt to have someone killed? Or is it just running an online marketplace? If it's the latter I can't see how the sentence could be so harsh. Tax evasion tops.

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In the US, conspiracy to distribute narcotics can carry up to life in prison. The sentence is based on the amount and type of drugs involved in the conspiracy - there is actually a table [1] that determines the offense level (which is then used with another table to determine the sentence [2]). In this case, because of the sheer volume of drugs sold via SR, if found guilty on the drug charges alone (he also faces several others) he would be guaranteed a multi-decade sentence.

Specifically, he's looking at a base offense level of 38, plus 2 points for distribution "through mass-marketing by means of an interactive computer service," for an offense level of 40. If he has no criminal history at all, that puts him in the 292-365 months (~25-30 years) in prison range on the drug charges alone. If he also gets the 2 point enhancement for making "a credible threat to use violence, or directed the use of violence" as has been alleged, then he would automatically be looking at 30 years to life since his offense level would be 42.

[1] http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2013/2013-2d11 (see "drug quantity table")

[2] http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2013/2013-5asentab

Wow. It's crazy to see the difference between jurisdictions in this case.

I took the time to look up the laws[1] for my country and found (disclaimer I'm no lawyer so I might be wrong) a maximum sentence of 5 years for anything related to drugs (including possession and Trafficking)

Were the US sentences always that high or are they a result of the "War on Drugs"?

[1]http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/btmg_1981/BJNR106810981.ht...

Even in the 70s when Nixon declared "War on Drugs" he was repealing previous mandatory sentences introduced in the 50s. It was in the 80s that the huge mandatory sentences for "Crack" cocaine and lesser ones for other "hard drugs" were re-introduced. Some states also had mandatory sentences throughout this time.

Wow, sounds like the legislation itself in the U.S. is immoral and unethical.

I'm late to the party, but you can (theoretically) receive the death penalty in the US from the federal government for operating as a drug kingpin.

There's some unsettled aspects that may allow you to appeal that sentence, but it's technically on the books.

Call me a conspiracy theorist all you want but you can't just go there and build a system that is a potential threat to the USD world reserve currency and to the power of the FED.

Silk Road doesn't pose a potential existential threat to the USD, and neither does Bitcoin. This vastly underestimates the strength of the existing global economic structure, and overestimates the impact of what is, essentially, a slightly higher-tech way to launder money and buy drugs on the internet.

I understand some Bitcoin fanatics of the cryptolibertarian and anarchist persuasion would like to believe that anything not a blockchain is a house of cards destined to tumble, but everything Ulbricht is charged with would still be a crime if the Silk Road ran entirely on dollars and cents, so to me, invoking conspiracy doesn't really pass the smell test.

If the government weas really that afraid of dark markets, or bitcoin, one would expect it to take heavier action against sites like Coinbase, or other open businesses which accept it, since they have far greater potential of spreading Bitcoin to the masses than inherently illegal sites like Silk Road, which would make most people uncomfortable even to know about. Yet, merely holding Bitcoins, or transacting in BTC, is not a crime.

I said "porentialy". As an example: China, Russia, other countries like Iran could start demanding bitcoins for their oil and gas in the future. There is limited number of bitcoins. Limited by an algorithm. The numer of usds is potentially unlimited. I could come up with other examples that could be unrealistic today but possible in 5 or 10 years. So kill the cryptocurrencies while it is still easy. I dont own and have never owned any cryptocurrencies.

I can't even conceive that China, Russia, etc. would one day demand payment for anything exclusively in bitcoins unless they're well aware that the countries they're selling to have enough bitcoins and are willing to deal in that.

Also, there's nothing stopping the US government from simply using BTC itself, or whatever cryptocurrency it sees fit, as it might any foreign currency.

I've never seen any sign that the Fed or the USG actually see cryptocurrencies as a threat.

Again: cryptocurrencies have built in anti-inflation mechanism: you can have just these many bitcoins. You can't inflate out your debt using printing press. Very good feature for a creditor nation, like China. Very bad for debtor nation like the US. Ie The USD monetary base at least doubled since 2008. To deal with the debt. Impossible to do with bitcoins. Or gold for that matter.

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