The Silk Road: A Paradigm-Shifting Criminal Innovation

Over the site's lifetime, about 1.2 million transactions took place with around 9.5 million Bitcoins. From that, it's believed that Ross Ulbrich alone took around 600,000 Bitcoins in commission. The value of Bitcoin between 2011 and 2012 was pretty volatile but by taking a rough average of around $200 per Bitcoin or so, this would point to a turnover of around $1.8 billion. However, the price of Bitcoin has risen in the 10 years since the Silk Road was seized, to around $22,000 per Bitcoin. So this would mean that the total value of the Bitcoin made on Silk Road in 2023 is roughly $14 billion.