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Speaker 1: This is Red Pilled America.

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Speaker 3: The first time I ever heard the word bitcoin was

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Speaker 3: back in twenty twelve when I was a federal prosecutor

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Speaker 3: at the US Department of Justice, previously on Red Pilled America,

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Speaker 3: and I heard the word bitcoin because I was asked

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Speaker 3: to prepare an investigation in a case against it and

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Speaker 3: to help shut it down.

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Speaker 1: The product that would eventually make Silk Road and national

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Speaker 1: headline were the drugs.

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Speaker 4: It's a certifiable one stop shop for illegal drugs that

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Speaker 4: represents the most brazen attempt the pedal drugs online that

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Speaker 4: we have ever seen.

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Speaker 2: Two separate federal task forces were formed to find the

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Speaker 2: mastermind behind silk Road.

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Speaker 4: At the beginning of bigot mitcoin was totally an automates

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Speaker 4: and that here the government.

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Speaker 2: The blockchain is basically one big banking statement for all

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Speaker 2: bitcoin transactions, and that history can be tracked and never

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Speaker 2: be changed. It's permanent. The silk Road administrator announced his

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Speaker 2: new name as dread Pirate.

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Speaker 1: Roberts, and just like that, DPR ordered and paid for

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Speaker 1: the assassination of a total of six people that were

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Speaker 1: threatening his Silk Road empire. One of the primary reasons

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Speaker 1: people think bitcoin is dangerous to America is because our

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Speaker 1: leaders claim it's nothing but a tool for criminals.

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Speaker 5: Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been exploited to support billions

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Speaker 5: of dollars of illicit activity like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware,

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Speaker 5: illicit drugs, human trafficking. Many players have attempted to use

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Speaker 5: cryptocurrencies to fund their malign behavior.

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Speaker 1: But that doesn't tell the whole truth. And we know

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Speaker 1: this because it's the technology behind bitcoin that's helped catch criminals.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patrick Corelchi and this is Red Pilled America. It's

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Speaker 1: our third and final episode looking into the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

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Speaker 1: This is a complicated series, so if you missed the

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Speaker 1: earlier episodes, you may want to start from the beginning.

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Speaker 1: In part one, we explained how we've been hearing a

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Speaker 1: lot of concern about the new Internet cash called Bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: so we wanted to find out it was really dangerous

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Speaker 1: to America. We learned that the idea of digital cash

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Speaker 1: began forming in the early nineteen eighties for people that

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Speaker 1: wanted to bypass the watchful eye of the government. This

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Speaker 1: concept percolated until the onset of the two thousand and

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Speaker 1: eight financial crisis, when a mysterious figure named Satoshi Nakamoto

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Speaker 1: released his digital currency system to the public. He called

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Speaker 1: it Bitcoin. This new internet cash replaced the function of

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Speaker 1: a trusted third party like a bank or a credit

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Speaker 1: card company with an automated system of computers. Bitcoin needed

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Speaker 1: a large scale test case to prove its utility, and

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Speaker 1: that came with the launch of silk Road, an anonymous

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Speaker 1: online marketplace on the dark web, a site that became

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Speaker 1: the eBay of illegal drugs with bitcoin as its currency.

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Speaker 1: We heard from Curtis Green, an early bitcoin enthusiast who

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Speaker 1: was drawn to silk Road's message boards because it was

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Speaker 1: a hot spot for people interested in cryptocurrency. Curtis eventually

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Speaker 1: became a paid employee of the site, a move that

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Speaker 1: would quickly put his life in grave danger. In Part two,

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Speaker 1: we watched as Chuck Schumer discovered silk Road and brought

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Speaker 1: national attention not only to the illegal marketplace, but to

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Speaker 1: the new digital cash Bitcoin as well. We also learned

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Speaker 1: about the technology driving Bitcoin, called the blockchain, and how

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Speaker 1: it allows bitcoins to be transferred from one person to another.

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Speaker 1: The blockchain is a complete history of all transactions ever

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Speaker 1: made with bitcoin, and this history is permanent and can

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Speaker 1: never be altered. Then we watched as silk Road transformed

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Speaker 1: from a self described libertarian marketplace to what appeared to

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Speaker 1: be a ruthless digital drug cartel. As the captain of

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Speaker 1: silk Road, someone that went by the name of dread

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Speaker 1: Pirate Roberts or DPR, ordered the assassination of six people

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Speaker 1: that threatened his enterprise. But just as DPR thought he'd

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Speaker 1: tied up all his loose ends, a federal task force

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Speaker 1: was closing in on a suspect by the name of

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Speaker 1: Ross Ulbricht. So how did law enforcement find dread Pirate Roberts,

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Speaker 1: or DPR, as he's called, the mastermind behind the Silk

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Speaker 1: Road marketplace. As most of these things go, it was

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Speaker 1: a team effort, but there's usually one key individual that

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Speaker 1: makes a difference, and in this case, that person was

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Speaker 1: a young IRS agent named Gary Alford. Gary was tasked

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Speaker 1: with trying to trace the money going through Silk Road.

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Speaker 1: Growing up in the Brooklyn Projects, he had firsthand knowledge

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Speaker 1: of the negative impact of drugs, so the hunt for

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Speaker 1: DPR became personal to Gary, so much so that over

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Speaker 1: his weekends in June twenty thirteen, Gary found himself searching

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Speaker 1: for the captain of Silk Road. Not through some secret

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Speaker 1: back channel only accessible to government agents. No, he used

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Speaker 1: a tool available to everyone. He used Google. Like any

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Speaker 1: good researcher would do, Gary wanted to get as close

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Speaker 1: as possible to the origin of the site, so he

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Speaker 1: began looking for the first mention of Silk Road on

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Speaker 1: the Internet. A few things were widely known about this

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Speaker 1: dark web marketplace. One, it was only accessible by the

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Speaker 1: tor browser. Two, Silk Road used bitcoin as its currency,

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Speaker 1: and three it was thought to have launched around early

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Speaker 1: February twenty eleven, so Gary used scant bits of info

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Speaker 1: like these to search for the first time. Silk Road

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Speaker 1: emerged online. As any seasoned web researcher knows, Google has

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Speaker 1: tools to focus its search results. One of those tools

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Speaker 1: is an option to target a search within a specific

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Speaker 1: date range. So, for example, if you know the approximate

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Speaker 1: date of a site line launched, you can use unique

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Speaker 1: search terms associated with that website and constrain Google to

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Speaker 1: scour web pages that were posted before the launch date.

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Speaker 1: That way, if you're lucky, you may find someone talking

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Speaker 1: about the site before anyone else knows about it. Whoever

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Speaker 1: that person is would be a great starting point to

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Speaker 1: find the mastermind of the site. With the widely believed

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Speaker 1: launch date of silk Road being February twenty eleven, Gary

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Speaker 1: began using search terms associated with silk Road, but constrain

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Speaker 1: Google to only return web pages published prior to its launch.

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Speaker 1: You can try this at home. Enter the four words

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Speaker 1: silk Road, Bitcoin Tour into Google Press Center, and once

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Speaker 1: the results come back, click the tools button in the menu.

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Speaker 1: From there, you can constrain Google to search web pages

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Speaker 1: that were published on or before January thirty first, two

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Speaker 1: thy eleven. If you do this, what you'll likely find

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Speaker 1: is that on the first page of Google results, or

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Speaker 1: perhaps even in the very first spot, there's a posting

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Speaker 1: entitled a Heroin store on a website called bitcoin talk

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Speaker 1: dot org. This is the page that Gary Alford says

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Speaker 1: he found. Forums like bitcoin talk dot org are places

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Speaker 1: where someone posts topics related to bitcoin for people to discuss.

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Speaker 1: This particular topic started when a user posted a thought

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Speaker 1: experiment about how a drug dealer would set up a

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Speaker 1: website that accepts bitcoins for Heroin. The person who posted

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Speaker 1: the topic asked users to try to find ways that

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Speaker 1: someone could attack the store to take it down. The

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Speaker 1: topic was first published on June ninth, twenty ten, and

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Speaker 1: many users responded to it, but the particular page that

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Speaker 1: Gary found was a response posted months later on January

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Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty eleven, and the response mentioned silk Road. Apparently,

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Speaker 1: a user by the name of Altoid posted his response

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Speaker 1: to the topic, but at some point deleted it. However,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately for Altoid, deleting his response did not erase posts

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Speaker 1: by other commenters that had already quoted him, and what

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Speaker 1: Altoyd said in his original post was very interesting. What

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Speaker 1: he said was quote, what an awesome thread. You guys

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Speaker 1: have a ton of great ideas. Has anyone seen silk

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Speaker 1: Road yet? It's kind of like an anonymous Amazon dot com.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they have Heroin on there, but they

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Speaker 1: are selling other stuff. They basically used Bitcoin and tour

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Speaker 1: to broker anonymous transactions. Altoid then posted a link to

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Speaker 1: a word press website that gave instructions on how to

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Speaker 1: connect a silk Road using the Tor browser. Altoyd was

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Speaker 1: promoting silk Road on a bitcoin forum before anyone really

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Speaker 1: knew about the site. The post gave a plethora of

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Speaker 1: new paths to explore, so Gary didn't stop there. He

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Speaker 1: searched Google using the word Press site mentioned in the

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Speaker 1: post and found a similar listing promoting silk Road on

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Speaker 1: a site called schrumery dot com, a website that helps

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Speaker 1: spread information about magic mushrooms, a psychedelic drug. The post

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Speaker 1: was published two days earlier and listed the same WordPress

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Speaker 1: site that taught people how to use Tor to connect

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Speaker 1: to silk Road and the username that published the post.

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Speaker 1: He also went by the name of Altoid. Gary decided

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Speaker 1: to go back to bitcoin talk dot org and see

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Speaker 1: if Altoyd made any additional post to that site, and

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Speaker 1: what he found ended up being an enormous break in

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Speaker 1: the hunt for dread pirate Roberts. Altoid's last entry on

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Speaker 1: bitcoin talk dot org was on October eleventh, twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: The entry was a listing for a website development job

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Speaker 1: and included an email to contact and the email adjuress

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Speaker 1: ross Ulbricht at gmail dot com altoid. The user that

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Speaker 1: apparently first promoted silk Road online was someone named ross Olbricht.

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Speaker 1: Gary was of course elated, and he went back to

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Speaker 1: work that Monday to share his find with his coworkers,

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Speaker 1: but when he said he found the potential mastermind of

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Speaker 1: silk Road through a simple Google search, they brushed him off.

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Speaker 1: People have a hard time believing how much you can

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Speaker 1: find by methodically searching the public web. A few years ago,

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Speaker 1: everyone was trying to find a person who stole an

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Speaker 1: anti Trump protest flag that was being live streamed from

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Speaker 1: an unknown property occupied by actor Shi La Beau. We

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Speaker 1: did a simple Google search and found an online police

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Speaker 1: scanner that included a recording of someone being questioned near

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Speaker 1: the property the day before the flag was stolen. The

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Speaker 1: officer read the license plate of the driver to dispatch.

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Speaker 1: We connected that license plate to a person involved in

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Speaker 1: the flag heist, and woila case solved, all through a

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Speaker 1: simple Google search. Difficult things can be found if you

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Speaker 1: take the time to hunt. Gary was deterred by the

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Speaker 1: disinterest of his colleagues. He returned home and began searching

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Speaker 1: for all public data on Ross Olbricht. He found a

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Speaker 1: listing on another forum with a post that connected Ross

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Speaker 1: Olbrick to another web alias Frosty. Ross Olbrich was using

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Speaker 1: two online avatars, Altoyd and Frosty. Gary pulled information from

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Speaker 1: Google and learned that the last time Ross logged in

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Speaker 1: with his Google account was in the San Francisco area.

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Speaker 1: He even found a thirty five minute video of Ross

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Speaker 1: talking with a friend.

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Speaker 6: I'm twenty eight years old. Today is November sixth December.

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Speaker 6: That was December sixth, twenty twelve, here in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: So Ross, how did you come to live in San Francisco?

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Speaker 6: You twisted my arm until I said, ah, fine, I'll come.

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Speaker 1: While Gary was busy building a profile of Ross Albricht.

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Speaker 1: An FBI task force was also on the hunt for

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Speaker 1: dread Pirate Roberts. They didn't have a primary suspect yet,

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Speaker 1: but they'd found the servers hosting silk Road. One was

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, another the servers storing silk Roads bitcoins, was

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Speaker 1: in Iceland. They were also able to trace the IP

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Speaker 1: address of one of the site's administrators to San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: The federal task force was getting closer just as dread

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Speaker 1: Pirate Roberts became bolder. In mid August twenty thirteen, DPR

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Speaker 1: granted an interview with Forbes magazine, claiming he wasn't the

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Speaker 1: original dread Pirate Roberts, but that he'd inherited the site

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Speaker 1: from its creator, and DPR was rather cocky in the interview,

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Speaker 1: boasting quote, we've won the state's war on drugs because

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Speaker 1: of bitcoin end quote. The article must have ruffled some feathers,

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Speaker 1: because just a few weeks later, the New York Task

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Speaker 1: Force decided to convene everyone involved in the hunt to

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Speaker 1: one location to share information. IRS agent Gary Alford attended.

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Speaker 1: While at the meeting, he heard someone mention San Francisco

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Speaker 1: and chimed in that he'd had a suspect in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco as well, but the team was dismissive, so the

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Speaker 1: tenacious agent jumped on the phone with the prosecutor and

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Speaker 1: shared the San Francisco IP address of his suspect, Ross Olbricht.

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Speaker 1: After searching their database, the prosecutor called for an immediate

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Speaker 1: meeting with Gary, Homeland Security and the FBI because Gary's

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Speaker 1: IP location was just around the block from another location

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Speaker 1: where DPR was known to have logged in. During the meeting,

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Speaker 1: Gary mentioned he found another avatar associated with his suspect,

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Speaker 1: Ross Olbricht, used the name Frosty. That's when the FBI

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Speaker 1: perked up. Because Frosty was the username of the person

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Speaker 1: running Silk Road Servers. They thought they had their man.

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Speaker 1: Ross Olbricht was likely dread pirate Roberts. The FBI issued

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Speaker 1: a warrant for his but the team didn't want to

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Speaker 1: just arrest Ross. They wanted to catch him in the

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Speaker 1: act of being DPR on Silk Road so that he

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Speaker 1: couldn't just claim he was framed. To do this, the

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Speaker 1: task force needed to grab his computer before he had

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Speaker 1: a chance to shut it down and enact its encryption,

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Speaker 1: forever locking them out of the computer. And all of

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Speaker 1: the evidence that it may contain. Fortunately, by this time,

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Speaker 1: a Homeland Security special agent, Jared dr Yagen, had infiltrated

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Speaker 1: DPR's inner circle. Apparently, law enforcement had caught one of

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Speaker 1: DPR's high level staff members with the user named Cyrus,

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Speaker 1: and Dr Yegen took over his Silk Road account as Cyrus.

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Speaker 1: Dr Yaegen frequently communicated with dread Pirate Roberts on a

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Speaker 1: dark web service called staff Chat. DPR went by Dread

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Speaker 1: on that service, so, with Ross Oulbert as their primary suspect,

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Speaker 1: Dr Yegen and other members of the New York Task

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Speaker 1: Force traveled to San Francisco to methodically map out his arrest,

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Speaker 1: and the plan had to be executed flawlessly because one

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Speaker 1: false move could mean that dread Pirate Roberts could slip

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Speaker 1: away forever scot free. As listeners of Red Pilled America know,

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Speaker 1: this show is all about awakenings, and I recently had

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Speaker 1: an awakening of my own courtesy of the Licorice guy.

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Speaker 1: Licorice has no gender, but they do have color. My

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Speaker 1: mom says, once you go black, you never go back.

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Speaker 1: But I've been a red Vines junkie. My entire life.

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Speaker 1: but The Licorice Guy changed all that. His licorice is

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Speaker 1: so good and so fresh that it made me realize

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Speaker 1: that what I'd been eating my whole life wasn't really

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Speaker 1: licorice at all. The Licorice Guy is a family owned

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Speaker 1: kind of liquorice that converts non liquorice lovers into licorice

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Speaker 1: lifers like me. Right now, Red Pilled America listeners will

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Speaker 1: Guy and taste the difference.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back. I'm Adrianna Cortez So with Ross Albert as

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Speaker 2: the primary suspect for Dread Pirate Roberts, Special Agent Dir

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Speaker 2: Yagen and other members of the New York Task Force

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Speaker 2: travel to San Francisco to methodically map out his arrest.

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Speaker 2: The plan was to get Ross Albert into a public area,

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Speaker 2: then Special Agent Dir Yagan would initiate a chat with

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Speaker 2: DPR on staff Chat and coax him into logging into

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Speaker 2: Silk Road. If Ross was in fact Dreadpirate Roberts, they

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Speaker 2: could get his computer in an open, unencrypted state while

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Speaker 2: he was connected to Silk Road as DPR, catching him

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Speaker 2: red handed running the drug enterprise. On October one, twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 2: Dr Yaegen connected with FBI agents who'd been monitoring Ross

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Speaker 2: Albrick the day before as he worked at a coffee

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Speaker 2: shop near his apartment. Dur Yegen set up near the

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Speaker 2: cafe with his laptop and monitored the user name Dread

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Speaker 2: as he was logged into staff Chat. When Dread logged off,

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Speaker 2: dur Yegen concluded that Ross Albrick was leaving his apartment

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Speaker 2: and heading for a place with a public Wi Fi,

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Speaker 2: so the special agent notified the Task Force that Ross

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Speaker 2: was on the move, then quickly moved to a bench

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Speaker 2: near Ross Albrick's home to trail him. As dur Yagen watched,

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Speaker 2: Ross walked by, carrying his laptop in a shoulder bag,

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Speaker 2: waited at the intersection for a green light, then crossed

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Speaker 2: the street and walked into Bellow Coffee, the cafe he

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Speaker 2: was in the day before. But the shop must have

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Speaker 2: been too packed, because half a minute later he exited

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Speaker 2: and walked down the street towards the Glen Park Public Library,

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Speaker 2: just a street away. The team's arrest plan was quickly changing.

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Speaker 2: As Ros sat up in the library, Dr Yagen found

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Speaker 2: a spot in the stairwell and monitored staff chat for

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Speaker 2: Dred to come back online. When Dred resurfaced on staff chat,

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Speaker 2: der Yagen sent him a message as cyrus, Hey, can

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Speaker 2: you check out one of the flagged messages for me?

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Speaker 2: Dur Yegan asked Dred, referring to messages on Silk Road.

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Speaker 2: Dred responded, you did bitcoin exchange before you worked for me, right, yes?

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Speaker 2: Dr Yagan responded, but just for a little bit, not

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Speaker 2: anymore then, No, I stopped because of reporting requirements damn regulators, EH,

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Speaker 2: responded Dred. He continued, which post with DPR now logged

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Speaker 2: into both staff chat and Silk Road der Yagan gave

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Speaker 2: the signal to arrest Ross Albricht. As Ross sat with

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Speaker 2: his laptop at a library table, two federal agents acted

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Speaker 2: out a lover's quarrel to distract Ross, and when he

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Speaker 2: turned to watch the commotion, an agent swiftly grabbed Ross's computer,

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Speaker 2: making sure to keep it open as a swarm of

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Speaker 2: agents came from all angles of the library to finally

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Speaker 2: arrest the man they thought was dread Pirate Roberts. The

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Speaker 2: arrest was orchestrated perfectly. The team was able to take

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Speaker 2: possession of Ross's laptop before he was able to enact

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Speaker 2: any encryption, and by looking at the laptop, it appeared

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Speaker 2: they hooked the mother load. Ross's computer was logged into

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Speaker 2: the silk Road mastermind page as dread Pirate Roberts. News

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Speaker 2: of the arrest quickly hit the media.

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Speaker 7: Now it was a giant black market in illegal drugs

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Speaker 7: where buyers and sellers believed they could beyond the law.

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Speaker 7: Last week, Channel four News showed just how easy it

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Speaker 7: was to buy Class A drugs through Silk Road, a

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Speaker 7: so called dark website well hidden behind special software. It

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Speaker 7: was easy, but it seems that the site's boasts about

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Speaker 7: being impenetrable to police were wrong. It's now been taken

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Speaker 7: offline and it's alleged owner arrested by the FBI.

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Speaker 8: Ross All Bricks has certainly made an impact on the FBI.

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Speaker 8: They arrested the twenty nine year old in San Francisco

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Speaker 8: and charged him with narcotics trafficking, money laundering, computer hacking,

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Speaker 8: and soliciting murder. They believe he has dread Pirate Roberts,

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Speaker 8: the master of this black market Silk Road and eBay

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Speaker 8: for drugs and other illegal goods.

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Speaker 9: But they needed a scapegoat, and Ross's their scapegoat. That's

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Speaker 9: my opinion, and I think I personally think it was

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Speaker 9: because of the bitcoin.

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Speaker 2: That's Lynn Albritt Ross's mom. She's been a vocal supporter

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Speaker 2: of her sentence his rest and remembers that day, well, yeah.

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Speaker 9: I was just home about to go out to do

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Speaker 9: errands and I went into my husband's home office and

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Speaker 9: he was sitting with his head in his hands. I'm like,

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Speaker 9: what happened?

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Speaker 4: Where are you?

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Speaker 10: Okay?

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Speaker 9: And he goes, Ross has been arrested, and I'm like,

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Speaker 9: what arrested? I mean, because like I said, Ross had

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Speaker 9: never been you know, and I could tell it was

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Speaker 9: serious because he had his head in his hands, and

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Speaker 9: he hand me the phone. It was a Reuters reporter

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Speaker 9: and she filled me in and this whole thing, and

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Speaker 9: I was like, this is unbelievable. I mean, this is crazy.

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Speaker 9: And Ross is such a stellar person. There's no way

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Speaker 9: he'd hurt someone, and blah blah, blah blah. And then

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Speaker 9: I turn on the TV and there's George Stephanopolis.

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Speaker 5: That's stunning arrest of the drug kingpin who goes by

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Speaker 5: the name dread Pirate Roberts Pierce've cornered the internet drug market.

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Speaker 7: His real name is ross Albrick, and.

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Speaker 11: His website, Silk Road, is packed with products like cocaine

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Speaker 11: and heroin.

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Speaker 9: George Stefanopolis going, oh, they found the guy. I'm like,

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Speaker 9: wait a minute, George, don't are we supposed to have

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Speaker 9: innocent to a proven guilty in a trial and stuff

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Speaker 9: like that, you know, I mean, just typical media crap.

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Speaker 9: And then suddenly there's the phone's ringing off the hook,

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Speaker 9: and the emails are pouring in, and media's driving by,

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Speaker 9: upsetting our neighbors, taking photos of everything and knocking on

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Speaker 9: our door. And I'm like it was like it was

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Speaker 9: so weird. It was just this siege and honestly that

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Speaker 9: my life has not been the same since that day.

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Speaker 9: That was just everything changed because I knew I had

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Speaker 9: to try to save him.

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Speaker 2: Many that knew Ross found it unbelievable that he was

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Speaker 2: the mastermind of a massive online drug enterprise. At the

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Speaker 2: time of his arrest, the twenty nine year old, six

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Speaker 2: foot two, good looking white dude was known by his

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Speaker 2: friends and family as an easygoing, brilliant young man. He

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Speaker 2: grew up in Austin, Texas, the son of Lynn and

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Speaker 2: his father Kirk. He has an older sister and by

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Speaker 2: all accounts, Ross had a pretty regular family.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, and he was always very exceptionally easy going and

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Speaker 9: he still is easy going. Actually, he's got his personality

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Speaker 9: just really a joyed raise wasn't a problem at all,

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Speaker 9: and just a very pleasant person. I was able to

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Speaker 9: take him around everywhere because he was so easy to do,

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Speaker 9: you know, to take places.

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Speaker 2: Roscott good grades in high school and when he graduated,

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Speaker 2: he went to the University of Texas in Dallas.

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Speaker 9: He majored in physics and worked in a solar lab

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Speaker 9: where they developed solar cells for research for solar energy

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Speaker 9: and published several academic papers there and then went on

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Speaker 9: to get a master's at Penn State in material science

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Speaker 9: and engineering, and then had actually was on his way

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00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:44,360
Speaker 9: to Cornell for his PhD and got passionate about well

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Speaker 9: the wrong He got involved with the Ron Paul campaign.

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Speaker 9: He got passionate about Austrian economics and all of the

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Speaker 9: writings of those people, and decided that telling him, I'm like, no,

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Speaker 9: don't tell me, you're not going to do this as

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Speaker 9: his mother, but he said, I just don't have the

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Speaker 9: passion for it. This is what I want to really

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Speaker 9: get it to his free markets and the whole freedom movement,

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Speaker 9: and so that's what he did.

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Speaker 2: Ross decided to explore the free markets by taking the

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Speaker 2: entrepreneurial route.

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Speaker 9: He opened a business. It was a book business, online

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Speaker 9: book business, kind of like a tiny Amazon really, but

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Speaker 9: with used books, and he was doing pretty well. He

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Speaker 9: came up with a system that made it really efficient

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Speaker 9: and he basically how it worked was that he'd go

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Speaker 9: around collecting people who donate books and then they would

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Speaker 9: sell them and donate a portion of that to various

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Speaker 9: charities in Austin, including a prison literacy program.

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Speaker 2: But as he developed this book site, he got interested

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Speaker 2: in bitcoin and decided to marry it with Tor to

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Speaker 2: launch silk Road.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, it was to provide a truly free market that

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Speaker 9: offered privacy to users and the used bitcoin as the

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00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 9: means of exchange. It was actually because he saw the

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Speaker 9: potential for monetary freedom with bitcoin and was very excited

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Speaker 9: about it. Talked to me about it. I even said

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Speaker 9: should I get some? And he goes, no, it's too volatile.

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Speaker 9: Don't do that.

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Speaker 2: To get silk Road started, Ross actually grew magic mushrooms

433
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: and sold them on the site. In other words, silk

434
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 2: Road was going to be a drug marketplace from the

435
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 2: get go. As we've seen, Ross launched silk Road in

436
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 2: early twenty eleven. And it's about here where the government

437
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 2: and Ross's stories diverge. His lawyer and mother contend that

438
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 2: Ross left silk Road shortly after it launched because the

439
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 2: enterprise was too stressful.

440
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: Ross when did he? Was he involved with it throughout

441
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: or did he ever step away from it? The silk

442
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 1: Road I'm talking about.

443
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 9: Yeah, and this goes into a lot and something that

444
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 9: we put together called Railroaded. The targeting and caging of

445
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 9: Ross Olbricht all based on the public record. It's heavily footnoted,

446
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 9: it's on our website, and there's also an audio component

447
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 9: that No, he stepped away and because it got to

448
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 9: be too much. He's not a computer programmer.

449
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 2: In January twenty fifteen, Ross Albrick's trial began in a

450
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 2: New York City courtroom. During the trial, Ross's lawyer suggested

451
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 2: he sold the business in mid twenty eleven to an

452
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 2: unspecified third party, but showed no clear evidence of that sale.

453
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 2: His lawyer also suggested that around the time of his arrest,

454
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 2: Ross was lured back to working on Silk Road and

455
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 2: was either framed by the actual dread pirate Roberts, or

456
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 2: perhaps he was framed by some other unknown person that

457
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: hacked Ross's computer. Who did this framing is unclear, but

458
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 2: Ross was framed, argued his supporters, even after watching a

459
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 2: nearly three hour documentary entitled Railroaded The Targeting and Caging

460
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 2: of Ross albrit The documentary had no real hard evidence

461
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: proving Ross was framed. Instead, it weaves a complicated story

462
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 2: suggesting a long list of potential culprits and how Ross

463
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 2: was wronged. Throughout the judas process. Ross's mother, Lynn follows

464
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 2: this same line of argument.

465
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 9: The defense was not permitted to pursue the alternate perpetrator,

466
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 9: was not permitted to cross examine about certain things, was

467
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 9: not allowed to bring witnesses, for instance, a tech witness

468
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,640
Speaker 9: who would have talked about how you cannot determine who

469
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 9: was on the other side of an anonymous chat. The

470
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 9: time stamps were questionable, and the evidence there was you know,

471
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 9: as I said, Ross was on an open source network

472
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 9: at the library. How easily infiltrated that is, things can

473
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 9: be tampered with things. You know, they had his laptop

474
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 9: for three hours unsupervised, just one guy. That's totally against protocol.

475
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 9: I have no idea what that guy did with his

476
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 9: laptop at all.

477
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 12: There was an.

478
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 9: Alternate perpetrator brought up a trial that the judge would

479
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 9: not permit being pursued. There were two corrupt agents who

480
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,719
Speaker 9: had free reign of sight, who could change anything, including

481
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 9: the in the jury was seeing there now in prison.

482
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 9: So the trial was very fast because a lot of

483
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 9: the defense was not permitted to be heard. They wouldn't

484
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 9: even let Ross turn around when we'd come into the

485
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 9: room and smile at us, because they didn't want the

486
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 9: jury to think he had a supportive family.

487
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 12: They weren't.

488
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 9: His libertarian views were not allowed to be known. A

489
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 9: good number of them also worked for the government, which

490
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 9: I think is a bit of a conflict of interest

491
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 9: because here's the government saying this, and they work for

492
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 9: the government, and I think there's a certain, you know

493
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 9: assumption that well, if the government saying it and a

494
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 9: prosecutor saying it, must be true. None of the legal

495
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 9: things or anything like that that was sold on the

496
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 9: site because it was like an eBay, were allowed to

497
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 9: be known. Even marijuana, of all things, which you know

498
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 9: obviously is a drug, but that was not allowed to

499
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 9: be known, even though was the main drug that was sold.

500
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 12: I think it was.

501
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 9: Ten out of twelve were over forty, and I don't

502
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 9: really think they many of them understood at all the

503
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 9: technical aspects, the bitcoin aspects. The bitcoin witnesses that the

504
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 9: defense wanted to call were not permitted to testify. It

505
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 9: kind of goes on and on at all the complication.

506
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 9: It's a very complicated case.

507
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 2: So the prosecution, on the other hand, had a very clear,

508
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 2: cohesive and simple narrative, and that is that Ross created

509
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,959
Speaker 2: Silk Road and ran the site from the beginning to

510
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 2: the end, and only came up with the dread Pirate

511
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 2: Roberts persona to muddy the waters in the event that

512
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 2: law enforcement closed in on him. The prosecution's case against

513
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 2: Ross was absolutely overwhelming. First and foremost, he was caught

514
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 2: red handed, logged in as dread Pirate Roberts. The silk

515
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 2: Road servers automatically recognized his laptop at login. Ross's laptop

516
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 2: was named Frosty, the same name the silk Road servers recognized.

517
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 2: There was a detailed electronic journal on his laptop, and

518
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 2: many of the significant events and dates in the journal

519
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 2: aligned with things that dread Pirate Roberts said in silk

520
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 2: Road chat logs and forums. His Gmail account included confirmation

521
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 2: emails addressed to Altoid, the same avatar used to promote

522
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: silk Road before anyone really knew about the site. Specific

523
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 2: events and vacations Ross posted on social media aligned both

524
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 2: in timing and content with things DPR said. An entire

525
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: backup of the silk Road server was found in Ross's possession.

526
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 2: His close friend even testified that he helped Ross write

527
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 2: the code for the site and also to authenticate his messages.

528
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 2: DPR used was called a private PGP key as a signature.

529
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 2: That private key was found on Ross's computer and the

530
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 2: key never changed throughout the entire time dread Pirate Roberts existed.

531
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 2: But perhaps the biggest indication that Ross Allbridge was in

532
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 2: fact the head of the Silk Road site was something

533
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 2: else that was found on his laptop, something that would

534
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 2: be used to suggest Ross Albrick was a ruthless drug kingpin.

535
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 2: Do you want to hear Red Pilled America stories AD free?

536
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: Then become a backstage subscriber. When you become a backstage subscriber,

537
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 2: you get to hear our entire archive of stories with

538
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 2: zero ADS in them. And becoming the backstage subscriber is easy.

539
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,200
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540
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,120
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541
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 2: click join in the topmenu. Join today and help us

542
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: save America one story at a time.

543
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: Welcome back. The evidence showing Ross Olbrich was Dreadpirate Roberts

544
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: was overwhelming, but perhaps the biggest indication that Ross Olbrich

545
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: was in fact the head of Silk Road was something

546
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: else that was found on his laptop, something that be

547
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: used to suggest that Ross was a ruthless drug kingpin.

548
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: When the Federal Task Force confiscated Ross Olbrik's computer, they

549
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: found a bitcoin wallet on his hard drive. A witness

550
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: for the prosecution, former FBI agent Ilwan Yum, led an

551
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: analysis of this bitcoin wallet. You may recall from part

552
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: two of this series that the blockchain is the technology

553
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: driving bitcoin and that it stores every Bitcoin transaction that

554
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: has ever occurred onto an immutable, permanent public ledger called

555
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: the blockchain. For each transaction, it doesn't store anyone's name,

556
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: but instead it stores the bitcoin address of the sender,

557
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: the Bitcoin address of the receiver, the amount of bitcoin sent,

558
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: and the date it was sent. Since the FBI had

559
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: both the server that hosted silk roads bitcoin wallet and

560
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: Ross Olbrich's computer that it housed a bitcoin wallet, former

561
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: FBI agent Yum was able to use the blockchain to

562
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: trace more than thirteen million dollars in direct transaction from

563
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: Silk Road's Bitcoin address to the bitcoin address on Ross

564
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: Olbrich's laptop. It was undeniable. Ross Olbrichs's computer contained massive

565
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 1: amounts of money from a criminal drug enterprise. The only

566
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: response to this damning evidence has been that the Bitcoin

567
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: wallet was planted on Ross's computer by someone else, which

568
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: we'll get to in a bit. But first, and undoubtedly

569
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: the biggest controversy associated with the Silk Road case was

570
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: the alleged murder for Higher Plots. You may recall from

571
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,959
Speaker 1: Part two, the DPR ordered and paid for the assassination

572
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: of six people that threatened his Silk Road enterprise. That

573
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,879
Speaker 1: information was gathered during the federal investigation, found in chat

574
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: logs on the Silk Road server and in the journal

575
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: found on Ross Olbrich's computer, But to date, the government

576
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: was never able to prove that any of these murders

577
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: ever actually occurred. Ross was never charged or convicted of

578
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: a murder for Higher Plot. The prosecution did contend, however,

579
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 1: that DPR did in fact order and pay for assassinations

580
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: and believe they happened at the time, and the prosecution

581
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,479
Speaker 1: brought this up in trial. I asked Lynn Ulbrick about

582
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: the murder for Higher accusations against Ross.

583
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 9: So, for example, with Ross's case, the first we hear

584
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 9: about this is at the bail hearing. Totally ambushed by

585
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 9: this at the bail hearing, trying to get bail, and

586
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 9: so they use that to deprive them of bail. The

587
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 9: defense didn't even know about it. Then they were they

588
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 9: were permitted, the prosecution was permitted to talk about it

589
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 9: a trial, even though they said, we're not charging him

590
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 9: with this, there's no murders, but believe us, just trust

591
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 9: us he did this. Now that's not how it's supposed

592
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 9: to work. You're supposed to have proof and all of that.

593
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 9: Now they got they were permitted to prejudice the jury

594
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 9: with that. Then the judge she uh used.

595
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: It so and they they basically what they claimed was

596
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: is that he was involved in some kind of a

597
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: plot to you to take out people that were investigating

598
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: him or what was this?

599
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 9: No, it was he was accused and it's all based

600
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 9: on again anonymous digital evidence, no witnesses, nothing. He was

601
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 9: accused of by you know, paying hitmen. Now mind you,

602
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 9: there were no hit men allowed on Silk Road. But anyway,

603
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 9: paying hitman to kill one was somebody blackmailing, supposedly blackmailing

604
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:33,280
Speaker 9: him and or set threatening to give names of people

605
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 9: on Silk Road. There was a couple of different instances.

606
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 9: One was Curtis Green, who supposed they faked his death

607
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 9: and showed pictures. He's the guy who says he doesn't

608
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 9: think it was Ross.

609
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: I actually talked to Curtis Green about this and his

610
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: take was a little different than Lin's. And do you

611
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: think that Ross was involved with the murder for hire?

612
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 13: You know that I don't know. My view has changed

613
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 13: on that multiple times, and so I'm not you.

614
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 4: Know, I lot mentally because I was told so many

615
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 4: different story so I don't know what to believe.

616
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: Well, Bitcoin helps shed some light on this issue. You

617
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: may recall from part two that dread Pirate Roberts was

618
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: in communication with a supposed Hell's angel called Red and

619
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,280
Speaker 1: White and asked him to assassinate a guy named Friendly Chemist.

620
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: The Department of Justice says these communications were found on

621
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,280
Speaker 1: silk Roads market server and user forum. Red and White

622
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: said he would charge somewhere between one hundred and fifty

623
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: thousand and three hundred thousand dollars to kill Friendly Chemist,

624
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: but dpr boked, stating, quote, don't want to be a

625
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago,

626
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: I had a clean hit done for eighty thousand dollars

627
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 1: are the prices you quoted? The best you can do?

628
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: End quote. Eighty thousand dollars is the same amount of

629
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: money that the DOJ says DPR anonymously wired to an

630
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: undercover agent for the fake assassination of Curtis Green. Red

631
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,799
Speaker 1: White responded to DPR holding firm on the hundred fifty

632
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: thousand dollars price tag and told DPR, quote, if you

633
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: want it done by Monday, that only leaves today. It's

634
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: Sunday morning.

635
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 4: Here.

636
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 1: We always seem to miss each other online, so I

637
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: will leave a bitcoin address in case you want to

638
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: pay that way. Red and White continued, quote, I will

639
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: check the computer in about ten hours, and if I

640
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: see that you do want to go ahead with this

641
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 1: and a payment has been sent, we'll do it to

642
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: day end quote. Red and White sent his bitcoin address

643
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: along with this message to DPR. Dread pirate Roberts responded

644
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: a few hours later and said, thank you, Red and White.

645
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: I've only ever commissioned the one other hit, so I'm

646
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: still learning this market. I have no problem putting my

647
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: faith in you, and I'm sure you will do a

648
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: good job. The exchange rate is about ninety right now,

649
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: so at ninety dollars per bitcoin, a hundred and fifty

650
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is about one thousand, six hundred and seventy

651
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: bitcoins end quote. DPR then paid Red and White the

652
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: one thousand, six hundred and seventy bitcoins, and to prove it,

653
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,919
Speaker 1: he sent Red and White the bitcoin transaction number, which

654
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: is like a confirmation number for a credit card payment.

655
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: And sure enough, the transaction is immortalized on the blockchain.

656
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: Anyone can go there now and see it. But DPR's

657
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: interaction with Red and White didn't end there. He also

658
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: called for the hit of four more people and negotiated

659
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: with Red and White the price of five hundred thousand

660
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 1: dollars for the job. At the time, five hundred thousand

661
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: dollars was roughly three thousand bitcoins, so DPR sent three

662
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 1: thousand bitcoins to Red and White's bitcoin address and again

663
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: sent the blockchain transaction number to confirm the payment went through.

664
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: And if you go to the blockchain right now, the

665
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: transaction is once again forever immortalized. However, the blockchain does

666
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,839
Speaker 1: not record the names of the sender and receiver. So

667
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: how do we know ross olbrichs sent these payments. Well,

668
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: the bitcoin addresses that sent the alleged hitman the money

669
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: were found on ross olbricht laptop. Even Ross's lawyer had

670
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: to admit to that fact to an appeals judge.

671
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 14: Was there not evidence that he paid six hundred and

672
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 14: fifty thousand dollars worth of bitcoin to someone who had

673
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 14: represented that he killed people at the orders of dread pirate?

674
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 14: Roberts that again that we can't elevate.

675
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, yes, yes, but but you can't but only

676
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 10: in the sense of what's on an internet chat room.

677
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 14: We can't wait. Why I don't understand this.

678
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 15: It's one thing to say, wouldn't you know in a

679
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 15: fantasy chat you know, I'd like to kill everybody that

680
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 15: I don't like. It's a different thing to actually pay

681
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 15: money to someone.

682
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: Ross Olbrich was never charged with or found guilty of

683
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: a murder for higher plot, that's for sure. But a

684
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: bitcoin wallet that was on his laptop sent money to

685
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 1: a man claiming to have successfully killed five people. Make

686
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: of that what you may. Many still argue that the

687
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:06,760
Speaker 1: incriminating evidence found on ross Olbrich's laptop was all planted.

688
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 1: That argument reminds me of another story.

689
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 11: A woman who was caught with meth in a Regina

690
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 11: claims to police that it was not hers.

691
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: You see, in order to believe that the government planted

692
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: all of this incriminating evidence on Ross's computer, you also

693
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: have to believe that they planted evidence that incriminated one

694
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: of their own federal agents. Remember in part two, when

695
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: DPR was constantly getting approached by Silk Road users attempting

696
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: to extract money from him. One was Death from Above,

697
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: who claimed to know DPR's identity and was going to

698
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: release it to the public. Then another user, french Maid,

699
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: claimed to have inside information on the federal investigation into

700
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 1: Silk Road. DPR paid french Maid for that info. After

701
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: Ross was arrested, they found a folder on his computer

702
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: that stored the information that french Maid provided. There were

703
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: also journal entries on Ross's laptop documenting communications with french

704
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: Maid that all also matched up with chat logs between

705
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: DPR and french Maid on the Silk Road server. And

706
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: who was french Maid and Death from Above? Well, it

707
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: turns out that both were none other than a DEA

708
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: agent named Carl Force. And we know this because of

709
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: the blockchain. Carl Force was the DEA agent that went

710
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: undercover into Silk Road as a mafia connected drug dealer

711
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 1: called Knob, the same Knob that sent Curtis Green cocaine,

712
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: the same knob that DPR hired to kill Curtis Green,

713
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 1: and the same knob that staged Curtis Green's murder. A

714
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: few months after ross Ulbrich was arrested, a Department of

715
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: Justice prosecutor named Katie Han got a tip.

716
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 3: The essence of the tip was Knobs moving around a

717
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 3: lot of bitcoin. Now, remember I was in San Francisco

718
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 3: at the time, used to kind of crazies calling me

719
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 3: up telling me about the government conspiracies that were going on.

720
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 3: So I took this with a grain of salt. But

721
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 3: the tipster was pretty insistent, and I looked into it

722
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 3: a little further and found that Knob was liquidating hundreds

723
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 3: of thousands of dollars of bitcoin every month. I thought

724
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 3: it was probably a poorly backstopped undercover operation, but I

725
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 3: looked into it a little further and I found that

726
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 3: Knob was liquidating this to his own personal accounts. And

727
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 3: when I subpoened some of those entities, what I found

728
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 3: was that Knob, with his badge, was telling them to

729
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 3: delete all of the transaction history. So now I was

730
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 3: getting suspicious too.

731
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: So Katie Hahn went to the blockchain to follow the

732
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: history of Knob or Carl Force's bitcoin transactions.

733
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:43,760
Speaker 3: So using the blockchain working backwards, we went to Knob's

734
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 3: accounts and we traced those bitcoin payments. You can see

735
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 3: it up on your screen here. And what's interesting is

736
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 3: where we trace those payments too, right back to the

737
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 3: Silk Road. It turns out that those payments, and we

738
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 3: compared them and the timing to Ross Silbrook's journals of

739
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 3: when he had French Maid. Turns out that Knob was

740
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 3: French Maid. He'd been selling Ross Olbrucht's DPR information into

741
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 3: the government's investigation the whole time.

742
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: But that's not all.

743
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 3: He'd also been extorting Olbricht as death from above, threatening

744
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 3: to reveal his identity to law enforcement. In short, Knob

745
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 3: was a double agent. He'd gone rogue, and he was

746
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 3: playing both sides the entire time.

747
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 1: Carl Force was arrested and is serving a six and

748
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: a half year sentence in federal prison. Federal law enforcement

749
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: didn't even know about Carl Force's corruption until months after

750
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 1: Ross Olbrich's arrest. So to believe that the government planted

751
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: Ross Olbrich's computer with all of this damning evidence, you

752
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: also have to believe that they planted evidence against one

753
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: of their own. And here's the kicker. They had to

754
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: have planted it before they even knew Carl Force was corrupt.

755
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: The technology behind bitcoin brought down the mastermind of Silk

756
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: Road and a federal agent, but the blockchain also held

757
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: to prove another man's innocence. Do you remember the missing

758
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: twenty thousand bitcoins that the government thought Curtis greenstole. The

759
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 1: blockchain helped find that money as well.

760
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 3: Going back to the blockchain and looking at the stolen

761
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 3: twenty one thousand bitcoin the one hundred and fifty million dollars,

762
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 3: we saw that the patterns of the theft were very

763
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 3: different from French maize and death from aboves. Instead of

764
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 3: going through a series of convoluted hops, the stolen funds

765
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 3: from the Silk Road accounts went straight to one place,

766
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 3: to Mount Gox. Mount Gox was a cryptocurrency exchange based

767
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 3: in Japan, but it too had suffered a series of

768
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 3: hacks to the tune of five hundred million dollars. And

769
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 3: what this meant was that by the time we trace

770
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 3: this to Japan into mount Gox, there were no records

771
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 3: available for us to go look at But remember what

772
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 3: I told you about the blockchain, that it's immutable and

773
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 3: it's permanent. So we were able to trace the flow

774
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:16,240
Speaker 3: of funds through the blockchain from Mountcox to a US

775
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 3: financial institution. And where that led was also a surprise

776
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 3: right back to the Silk Rowe task Force, but not

777
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,919
Speaker 3: to knob to a secret service agent on that same

778
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 3: task force, a secret service agent by the name of

779
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 3: Shan Bridges. Shawn Bridges had also been at that proffer

780
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 3: session where Curtis had turned over his password and computer

781
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 3: and credentials, and that night Shawn Bridges went home using

782
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 3: Curtis Green's computer user named credentials and password and drained

783
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 3: Silk Road accounts of twenty one thousand bitcoin, and he

784
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 3: framed it. He framed Curtis Green, and then he stood

785
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 3: by the next day while his fellow agents on the

786
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 3: task force confronted Green and told told Green to come clean.

787
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 3: And he also stood by knowing that Russlbrit had put

788
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:10,280
Speaker 3: a hit out on Curtis Green. In fact, Sean Bridges

789
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,800
Speaker 3: helped stage those proof of death photos and helped stage

790
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 3: the torture and murder of Curtis Green. So later that

791
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 3: year we brought charges against both of these agents for embezzlement, extortion,

792
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 3: international money laundering, and obstruction of justice. Things really out

793
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 3: of a movie, and in fact, if you can believe it,

794
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 3: some of the guys in this story had movie deals.

795
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 3: But they won't be appearing in the movie because they're

796
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 3: now sitting in federal prison. But they almost weren't. Why.

797
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 3: These guys were the perfect criminals. With thirty years of

798
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 3: law enforcement investigative experience behind them, they knew exactly how

799
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 3: to cover their tracks. They were also able to get

800
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 3: unwitting participants like banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, and other entities to

801
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 3: destroy evidence. These guys had justice departments of poenis, they

802
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 3: forged court orders, seizear warrants, they even destroyed evidence in

803
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 3: burn bags. But the one thing they couldn't escape was

804
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 3: the immutable, transparent blockchain. And I'm here to tell you

805
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 3: that without it, we never would have caught these guys.

806
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 3: In fact, without the blockchain, they would have still been

807
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 3: sitting in the federal government today instead of in the

808
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 3: federal penitentiary.

809
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: The technology behind bitcoin proved that it can be used

810
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: to trace criminal behavior. Ross Albert ultimately lost his trial

811
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 1: and was found guilty on all counts. He was sentenced

812
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: by the judge to do two life sentences plus forty

813
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: years without the possibility of parole. He also lost his

814
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: appeal and the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.

815
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 1: He now has only two options again, Lynn Olbricht.

816
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 9: So now there's a habeas petition that's been filed, which

817
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,720
Speaker 9: is basically for various arguments Ross should have a new trial.

818
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 9: It's asking for a new trial in the District Court

819
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:06,239
Speaker 9: in New York. And then the other thing is clemency.

820
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: Jakie nil Chapel Guzman, the notorious drug kingpin that was

821
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 1: the head of the ruthless Sinaloa cartel for roughly three decades,

822
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: was found guilty of massive drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy

823
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: to murder, and was directed to hand over fourteen billion

824
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: dollars in drug money. Comparatively speaking, silk Road was a

825
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: minuscule operation, yet l Chapo got a lighter sentence than

826
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: Ross Olbricht. Some think that the harsh sentence was handed

827
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: down to stop Bitcoin in its tracks, to taint the

828
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals.

829
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 10: Think silk Road was a marginal company.

830
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 1: That's Mike Cernovich, filmmaker, journalist, author, and an early proponent

831
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:45,800
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrency.

832
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 10: Why did they target it? Because Wall Street wanted to

833
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 10: shoy Bitcoin before it could get big enough to compete

834
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,799
Speaker 10: for them. Because a lot of people don't want to

835
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 10: have to deal with central bankers.

836
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: The Trump administration has tried to paint bitcoin and other

837
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies as dangerous.

838
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 16: A crypto is being talked about. The President actually in

839
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 16: and tweeted about cryptocurrencies last night. He wrote in part this,

840
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 16: I'm not a fan of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which

841
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 16: are not money and whose value is highly volatile based

842
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 16: on thin air. He writes, unregulated crypto assets can facilitate

843
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 16: unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity rights

844
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 16: the present.

845
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: But the Federal Reserve prints the US dollar out of

846
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 1: thin air, and there's nothing more that facilitates unlawful behavior

847
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 1: than paper money. As we've shown, cryptocurrency actually helps law

848
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: enforcement catch criminals. Cryptocurrencies also have another benefit in these

849
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: politically volatile times, Activists within financial institutions have worked to

850
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 1: unbank their adversaries.

851
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:48,399
Speaker 10: Again, Mike Cernovich, So now, of course we're saying that

852
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 10: banks Bank of America won't do business with gun owners.

853
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 10: What happens when every big bank won't even do business

854
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 10: with people exercising their constitutional rights. There are people being

855
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 10: banned for free speech, and that's why Trump is losing

856
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 10: the plot when he wants to go after bitcoin.

857
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: Many big tech companies like Patreon and PayPal have also

858
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 1: blocked people from using their services. Bitcoin has helped solve

859
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: that troubling phenomenon.

860
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 17: But as it currently stands, it is a very viable

861
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 17: alternative to people who are no longer welcome within perhaps

862
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 17: some traditional financial institutions, so that does give them another option.

863
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:29,280
Speaker 1: As Billy Bambra, a freelance journalist that's been covering cryptocurrencies

864
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 1: since twenty twelve.

865
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 17: So, we're already seeing the issue of deplatforming come up

866
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 17: amongst some groups where companies don't want to work with them. PayPal,

867
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 17: for example, Patreon have said that they're going to consider

868
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 17: or in some case already have done, barring people from

869
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 17: their platforms. As digital money becomes much more important than

870
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 17: physical money, this is going to be a bigger issue

871
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 17: in the future because really we're letting private companies decide

872
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 17: who has access to money. Bitcoin is away and other

873
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:04,320
Speaker 17: cryptocurrencies are a way of stopping big companies being involved

874
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 17: in that decision.

875
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: The future of cryptocurrency looks so promising that Facebook is

876
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 1: trying to get in on the action.

877
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 11: Facebook announcing a new digital currency called Libra, and Facebook

878
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 11: says this digital currency aims to make it as easy

879
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 11: to send money around the world as it is to

880
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 11: send a photo now. The currency is set to launch

881
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 11: in the first half of next year, and it will

882
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 11: be run not by Facebook but by a nonprofit in Switzerland.

883
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:32,320
Speaker 11: And unlike Bitcoin, Libra, this digital currency will be backed

884
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 11: by real money, so if you put in a dollar

885
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 11: or some other currency into Libra, you'll get a dollar

886
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 11: or the equivalent out.

887
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 17: Now.

888
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 11: The goal is for that reserve of real money to

889
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 11: make the whole currency more stable, unlike Bitcoin, which is

890
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 11: obviously very volatile.

891
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: There the social media behemoth is trying to squeeze into

892
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: the currency game, and many believe it has an even

893
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:57,320
Speaker 1: larger potential to become a global currency.

894
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 12: It would have enormous attraction to people involved with China.

895
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: That's economist Peter Marisi, Professor emeritus at the University of

896
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

897
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 12: Because the Chinese government being so authoritarian and so capable

898
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 12: of just taking away anything your own anytime it wants to,

899
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 12: including your life beyond. Is not a good candidate to

900
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 12: be a reserve currency, and this could provide a convenient alternative.

901
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 12: The Chinese now use bitcoin to get money in an

902
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,319
Speaker 12: out of the country, so they can't otherwise get in

903
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 12: and out, the same thing with the Koreans. This would

904
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 12: be a much more attractible alternative to bitcoin because it

905
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 12: would have a much more stable value. So you know,

906
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:38,400
Speaker 12: governments are worried.

907
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 4: However, I don't know that anybody can prevent it.

908
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 1: With Facebook now wanting in the government may try to

909
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: stop the growth of cryptocurrency in other ways. Again Peter Maurici,

910
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 1: and the real question becomes is this like armies.

911
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:53,800
Speaker 12: You know it's illegal to have a private army in

912
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 12: the United States, should it be illegal to have private money?

913
00:53:57,640 --> 00:53:59,879
Speaker 12: You can make it illegal in the United States, But

914
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:04,360
Speaker 12: who's to prevent someone from establishing money out of Switzerland?

915
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 1: Which brings us back to the question is bitcoin dangerous

916
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: to America?

917
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 10: What would happen? For example, if Gulf nations, rather than

918
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 10: trading oil and dollars, moved to bitcoin, that would I

919
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 10: think destroy America as a global empire that said, I

920
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:26,240
Speaker 10: don't think that they're going to do that because bitcoin

921
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:27,839
Speaker 10: has way too much volatility.

922
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 4: It's revolutionary and it's going to change the way we

923
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,239
Speaker 4: do think. That's what I put blocking technology up there

924
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 4: to the invention of the cell phone to the invention

925
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 4: of a computer. That's what it's going to do to

926
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 4: liberate and liberate it and help us with our daily

927
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 4: lives in the future.

928
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:49,520
Speaker 17: And personally, I do see as a revolutionary technology that

929
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 17: is going to be like, I don't even know how,

930
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 17: but I'm convinced that it is going to change the

931
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:55,880
Speaker 17: world's significantly.

932
00:54:55,960 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is not necessarily dangerous to Americans. We can use

933
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 1: it to protect us from the poor policies of the

934
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:04,759
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve. It can be a life vote when the

935
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: banks and big tech companies deplatform us for our political views.

936
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 1: And the technology behind bitcoin, the blockchain has so many

937
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: positive uses that we don't even see them yet. For example,

938
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: imagine an election system built on the blockchain technology that

939
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: drives bitcoin. It could drastically eliminate voter fraud because every

940
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,840
Speaker 1: vote could be stored on the blockchain ledger, just like

941
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: every bitcoin transaction. And if there's any claim of voter fraud.

942
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: The entire vote for that election is there on the

943
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: blockchain for all to see an audit, and it could

944
00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 1: never be changed because it's immutable. That's the possibility of

945
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: the technology underpinning bitcoin. Bitcoin is also not dangerous in

946
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 1: the way our leaders are telling us. The US dollar

947
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 1: is made out of thin air, and nothing facilitates illegal

948
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 1: behavior more than paper money. Bitcoin, by contrast, has helped

949
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 1: put criminals behind bars.

950
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:59,400
Speaker 3: Now you might be thinking that cryptocurrency really is just

951
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 3: used by criminals, but nothing could be further from the truth.

952
00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 3: In fact, it's not surprising that in those early days

953
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:11,879
Speaker 3: criminals we're using cryptocurrencies. After all, criminals are great beta

954
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,919
Speaker 3: testers of any new technology. Think about in the early

955
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 3: days of the Internet, although we now i'll use it,

956
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:21,279
Speaker 3: some of its earliest adopters were fraudsters, and the same

957
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 3: as true of cryptocurrency. In twenty twelve, thirty percent of

958
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 3: bitcoin transaction value was associated with darknet markets like alphabet

959
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 3: or silk rowed, but by twenty eighteen that number is

960
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,400
Speaker 3: down to less than one percent. The fact of the

961
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 3: matter is that plenty of ordinary people all over the

962
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 3: world now are using cryptocurrency.

963
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: Bitcoin may have had a dark web start, but it's

964
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: now entered the mainstream. And some may not like to

965
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: hear this, but Ross Albert helped prove that bitcoin can

966
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: be used at scale as Internet cash. It's too early

967
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: to say how bitcoin, blockchain, or other cryptocurrencies will be

968
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 1: used in America. Could have predicted Fortnite or Snapchat in

969
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: the early days of the dial up Internet, but I

970
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: think it's safe to say that crypto is here to stay.

971
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 1: And then it appears that some of our leaders in Washington,

972
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,920
Speaker 1: d C. Like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are beginning

973
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: to get on board the crypto train.

974
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 6: But I'm just surprised that a Republican city, and you know,

975
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 6: on a in a powerful position, is making the case

976
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,240
Speaker 6: for Really, I think you're making the case for blockchain

977
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 6: and bitcoin.

978
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,440
Speaker 2: Leader, Well, look, I like bitcoin.

979
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch our new series entitled Crypto Revisited,

980
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 1: where we do another deep dive into cryptocurrency. Roughly three

981
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,360
Speaker 1: and a half years after airing this series, we answer

982
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 1: the question where is cryptocurrency going? The industry is no

983
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: longer in its infancy, and our Crypto Revisited conclusion will

984
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 1: no doubt shock you.

985
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:56,919
Speaker 2: Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned

986
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 2: and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Cortez of

987
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 2: Informed Ventures. Now you can get ad free acts to

988
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 2: our entire archive of episodes by becoming a backstage subscriber.

989
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: To subscribe, visit Redpilled America dot com and click join

990
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 2: in the topmenu. That's red Pilled America dot com and

991
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 2: click join in the top menu. Thanks for listening.