Lessons gleamed from the global drug trade
In today's edition of 'what can we learn from the drug trade?' we're talking about Silk Road.
It’s been 9 years since its founder, Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to 2x lifetime in prison, plus 40 years.
Silk Road was kind of like eBay, for the dark web.
Some of the platform’s best sellers? Drugs, weapons, and fake IDs.
And in February 2011, it went Bitcoin-only - giving BTC its first popular use case.
While we don’t condone dark web marketplaces, there are a few lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of Silk Road.
Silk Road onboarded a lot of people into the world of Bitcoin, back in 2011, by creating a marketplace of goods which had huge demand.
Lesson: Create something valuable, which appeals to the masses, and suddenly there could be rapid adoption of Web3 technology.
Bitcoin gained a reputation as, ‘the way to pay for drugs,’ which it’s taken years to shake.
Lesson: Branding is important. New companies entering the space should know what they want to achieve, and communicate clearly.
Ross Ulbricht says he has “immense regret” for creating Silk Road. “Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness,” he said.
Lesson: When you have an idea and you release it into the world, no one knows how people will use it. While growth is exciting, if guardrails aren’t put in place to keep it legal, all hell may break loose.
The good news is, in the 9 years since Silk Road was closed down, Bitcoin has continued to evolve and be adopted.
Let’s see what people’s imaginations bring next.
(But, ah - let's keep it legal, folks).
