January 26, 2013.
249 Users of Silk Road visiting the hidden site that morning: “FBI
Arrests Silk Road Drug Site
Suspect,” BBC News, October 2,
2013,
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-
24373759.
251 In court, Ross was in shackles:
“Attorney Denies Charges That
San Francisco Man Operated
Encrypted
Drug
Website,”
Associated Press, October 4, 2013.
CHAPTER 25
257 China’s previous experience with
a successful virtual currency:
Mark Lee, “China Bans Online
Virtual
Money
Dealing
for
Minors,” Bloomberg, June 22,
2010,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-06-22/tencent-shares-fall-after-
china-announces-virtual-currency-
ban-for-minors.
259 The reporter for Channel 2
tracked: The May 3, 2013,
segment
is
available
at
http://jingji.cntv.cn/2013/05/03/VIDE1367596319388137.shtml.
260 Macao, seven times bigger, in
revenue terms, than Las Vegas:
Charles
Riley,
“Macau’s
Gambling
Industry
Dwarfs
Vegas,” CNNMoney, January 6,
2014,
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/06/news/macau-casino-gambling/index.html.
261 a division of Baidu, the search engine giant and the fifth-most-visited website in the world,
announced:
Vitalik
Buterin,
“Baidu Jiasule and the Chinese
Bitcoin
Community,”
Bitcoin
Magazine, October 16, 2013,
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/7492/baidu-
jiasule-and-the-chinese-bitcoin-
community/.
262 John
Donahoe,
said
in
an
interview: Andrea Felsted, “Ebay
to Expand the Range of Digital
Currencies It Accepts,” Financial
Times, November 3, 2013.
CHAPTER 26
266 “long-term promise, particularly if
the innovations”: Ben Bernanke
letter to Senate Committee on
Homeland
Security
and
Governmental Affairs, September
6, 2013.
268 A story the previous week in
Xinhua: Xinhua story is available
at
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2013-
11/15/c_118148623.htm.
269 “I do not want to shut down or stamp out Bitcoin”: Morgan Peck,
“If Senators Really Like Bitcoin
They Should Encourage Banks to
Cooperate,”
IEEE
Spectrum,
November
21,
2014,
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
talk/computing/networks/us-
senate-.
269 Silk Road 2.0 showed up on the dark
web:
Eileen
Ormsby,
“Remember, Remember . . . Silk
Road Redux,” All Things Vice, November
7,
2013,
http://allthingsvice.com/2013/11/07/remember-remember-silk-road-redux/.
270 The number of Blockchain.info
wallets: Data on wallets available
at
https://blockchain.info/charts/my-
wallet-n-users.
271 But the relatively apathetic public
response: David Lauter, “Public
Largely
Tunes
Out
NSA
Surveillance Debate, Poll Finds,”
Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2014.
271 “We see the intrinsic value of
Bitcoin”: Gil Luria, “Bitcoin:
Intrinsic Value as Conduit for
Disruptive
Payment
Network
Technology,” Wed-bush Equity
Research, December 1, 2013.
272 “emerge as a serious competitor”:
David Woo, “Bitcoin: A First
Assessment,” Bank of America
Merrill Lynch FX and Rates
Research, December 5, 2013.
274 The good news was that the
agencies:
The
Chinese
government statement is available
at
http://www.pbc.gov.cn/publish/goutongjiaoliu/524/2013/20131205153156832222251/20131
205153156832222251_.html.
CHAPTER 27
286 Krugman focused largely on
Bitcoin’s claim: Paul Krugman,
“Bitcoin Is Evil,” New York
Times,
December
28,
2013,
http://krugman.blogs
.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-
is-evil/.
286 Cowen, meanwhile, argued: Tyler
Cowen, “How and Why Bitcoin
Will Plummet in Price,” Marginal
Revolution, December 30, 2013, http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/12/how-and-why-bitcoin-will-plummet-in-
price.html.
287 “to an extent that makes a sub-Saharan African kleptocracy”:
Charles Stross, “Why I Want
Bitcoin to Die in a Fire,” Charlie’s Diary,
December
18,
2013,
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2013/12/why-i-want-
bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html.
289 “It
represents
a
remarkable
conceptual”:
Francois
Velde,
“Bitcoin: A Primer,” Chicago Fed
Letter, December 2013.
289 Overstock announced that it
would begin: The announcement
is
available
at
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/72787431702/coinbase-and-overstock-com-announce-
largest.
290 Overstock processed more than
$100,000 in orders: Sales data
available
at
http://www.prweb.com/releases/bitcoin2014Keynote/PatrickByrne/prweb 11699797.htm.
CHAPTER 28
291 Thiel called him the “firefighter-in-chief”: Evelyn M. Rusli, “A
King of Connections Is Tech’s
Go-To Guy,” New York Times,
November
5,
2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/business/reid-hoffman-of-linkedin-has-become-
the-go-to-guy-of-tech.html?
pagewanted=all.
291 Hoffman later introduced Thiel to
Mark
Zuckerberg:
David
Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect
(New York: Simon & Schuster,
2010).
294 “The gulf between what the press
and many”: Marc Andreessen,
“Why
Bitcoin
Matters,”
DealBook, New York Times,
January
21,
2014,
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/.
295 He believed that it could help
open the door: A transcript of
Balaji’s talk at Startup School
2013
is
available
at
https://nydwracu.word
press.com/2013/10/28/transcript-
balaji-srinivasan-on-silicon-
valleys-ultimate-exit/.
299 The prosecutors had e-mails in
which: Sealed complaint against
Charlie Shrem filed by IRS
Special
Agent
Gary
Alford,
January 24, 2014.
300 “If you want to develop a virtual currency”: The press release
announcing Charlie’s arrest is
available
at
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/SchremFaiellaChargesPR.php.
303 told CNBC in late January: Jamie
Dimon, interviewed on CNBC,
January 23, 2014.
CHAPTER 29
309 In a statement, Mark explained:
While material from the Mt. Gox
web-site has been deleted, the full
statement is still available at