Silk Road (marketplace)
Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market. It was launched in 2011 by its American founder Ross Ulbricht under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts". As part of the dark web, Silk Road operated as a hidden service on the Tor network, allowing users to buy and sell products and services between each other anonymously. All transactions were conducted with bitcoin, a cryptocurrency which aided in protecting user identities. The website was known for its illegal drug marketplace, among other illegal and legal product listings. Between February 2011 and July 2013, the site facilitated sales amounting to 9,519,664 Bitcoins.
Item description page | |
Type of site | Online market |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Ross Ulbricht (pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts) |
| URL | Old URL: silkroad6ownowfk.onion (defunct) New URL: silkroad7rn2puhj.onion (defunct) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | February 2011 |
| Current status | Shut down by the FBI in October 2013. Silk Road 2.0 shut down by FBI and Europol on 6 November 2014. |
In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down Silk Road and arrested Ulbricht. Silk Road 2.0 came online the next month, run by former site administrators, but was shut down the following year as part of Operation Onymous. In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted in federal court for multiple charges related to operating Silk Road and was given two life sentences without possibility of parole.