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[–]SheHadMANHands 28 points29 points  (11 children)

There aren't 600k bitcoins, and that's the point. That's just the total commission paid, in bitcoins, since early 2011. DPR would have spent a reasonable portion of this over that period of several years to maintain the site among other things. You have to also consider that for a large portion of this period, bitcoins were trading in single digits. So, if in 2011 DPR needed to cash out some BTC to pay server costs, living expenses, "employees" (who were paid pretty well) and more, he would have had to cash out much more BTC than at today's exchange rate.

Maybe he has 150-200k bitcoin still? Who knows. 600k is almost certainly an inflated figure though.

[–]gwern 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Maybe he has 150-200k bitcoin still? Who knows. 600k is almost certainly an inflated figure though.

I've done some more analyzing and taking into account the exchange rate, and there's no way Ulbricht had only 200k, unless there are some yachts floating around no one knows about: http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1obvm2/estimating_dprs_income_after_expenses_exchange/

He most likely has 500k. Much closer to my estimate than yours.

[–]gwern 3 points4 points  (9 children)

DPR would have spent a reasonable portion of this over that period of several years to maintain the site among other things.

No, he wouldn't've. Estimate out how much 2 or 3 servers for 3 years would cost, and $2,000/week for the employees (conservative, because the FBI says that was the max). It comes to nowhere near 600k btc.

You have to also consider that for a large portion of this period, bitcoins were trading in single digits.

And most of SR was being pegged to the dollar.

Maybe he has 150-200k bitcoin still? Who knows. 600k is almost certainly an inflated figure though.

It's an upper bound (probably), but even 300k is still a hell of a lot to sell into the market when there's only 11.8m bitcoins around and at least 1m of that has been lost or is held by Satoshi.

[–]davvblack 3 points4 points  (8 children)

nowhere near 600k btc

At current exchange rates. A ton of Silk road business was done in the era of <$15 coins.

[–]gwern 0 points1 point  (7 children)

A ton of Silk road business was done in the era of >$15 coins.

Christin's crawl didn't show that much business being done then.

[–]davvblack 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Link? I'm curious.

[–]gwern 2 points3 points  (5 children)

https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/Christin-WWW13.pdf

[–]fried_dough 2 points3 points  (1 child)

This thread has contained the best discussion on Silk Road's commissions/ phantom mystery coins I've seen to date.

Just sayin'.

[–]therein 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I read this paper before. If I remember correctly, they started monitoring sales after BTC was way above 80$.

[–]gwern 1 point2 points  (1 child)

You must not have read the paper, since if you had, you would have realized that since their crawl started in February 2012, over $80 is absurd, and you would remember that they specify the exchange rate at the start was ~$5.

[–]therein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It has been a while since I read the paper. Anyway, I stand corrected.