Silk Road, a black-market website dealt with online drug trading were seized and its owner Ross William Ulbricht was arrested by FBI this week. All the illegal transactions were paid through Bitcoin, a virtual currency used to trade illicit products anonymously. The disclosure of Silk Road had a steep fall of roughly 20% for the value of Bitcoin. “But others argued that Silk Road’s closure would actually be good for the currency”, because the government’s suppression of Bitcoin will lead to a termination. Over the past years, the amount of Bitcoin in circulation has a total value about $1.2 billion in USD, and the site was making a profit of 80 million through the transactions. Nevertheless, we may ask will the demise of Silk Road become the collapse of black-market or it is “seemed to heat up” other trade market. The latter are tend to be more likely, a competitor Atlantis is now “aimed at eating away at Silk Road’s market share”. Personally, I think it is still a hardly controllable situation for the government, but things will eventually bring to justice.

Cites:

http://business.time.com/2013/10/04/online-drug-markets-are-alive-and-thriving/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24371894

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=optdfUhQIG8