Am I the only one who find strange that AB owner "only" had 23m worth of assets?

When LE busted Ross for SR, they alleged he made 80m in comissions from about 1-2 years of operation. Alphabay had a comission fee similar to that of SR, ran for almost twice as long as SR and its growth largely exceeded that of Silkroad's, growing over 10 times SR.

Am I the only one to find wierd that AB owner ended up with 4x less money than Ross, despite running a similar business, twice as long, ten times larger? And that is not even accounting for bitcoin value increase.

LE claimed that when they got Cazes' laptop unencrypted, he kept a "map" where he listed all his assets, and that all his bitcoin wallets were accessible by LE.

Surely he kept some hidden? 23m Is way too low, he should have made at least a half bill

In my opinion, either Cazes had a secret brain wallet where he kept most his money, or the numbers given by the FBI on both Ross and Cazes' are bullshit. The math doesn't check out.


Comments


[58 Points] None:

There is no reason to believe a single word of information.


[29 Points] ice_cream4breakfast:

SR commission was 10%. Also, assets don't include what he spent on bullshit.


[11 Points] eatxanax:

bullshit he has them stored offline somehow thats prob all the pigs could find plus they prob pocketed most of what they found


[8 Points] Crowfeather1999:

p u p p e t


[9 Points] blackhand25:

You have to remember that Silk Road started when bitcoin was around $1, and for the first 2 years of its operation it never rose above $15. He was collecting fees during a time when a $100 order would net multiple Bitcoin, and was busted at a time when Bitcoin was at an all time high(around $200) that was more than ten times higher than the high point of its first 2 years. According to the stats I've seen of the 1.2 million sales from opening to July 2013 Silk Road collected 0.6 million Bitcoin in fees.

Alphabay, on the other hand, does not seem to have been around when bitcoin was below $200. Even with comparable fee schedules Alphabay was collecting much smaller fees and had a lot more competition than Silk Road did in the first few years of its life. According to the official stats Alphabay was doing 600-800k a day when they shut it down. Meaning that in a year the total sales were only around 3 times what Ross was caught with.

Basically Ross benefited from being there first at a time when it was possible to average over the lifetime of the site 0.5btc per sale and the reported value at a time when bitcoin was at its highest.

Update: plus it looks like Ross lived a much simpler life.


[5 Points] alfabi:

FBI seized 28.5 mil in bitcoins from silk road. Today Ross bitcoins would worth 35 times more. Ross kept profit in btc so estimate in fiat is irrelevant. 23 Mil were seized from Cazes whatever cryptos or property. There is difference what is seized vs total market profit. All profits are in cryptocurrency and its hard to estimate totals in fiat because value of bitcoin goes up and down. Market can earn huge from bitcoin price rise. It also depend were and when btc was exchanged to fiat. Some vendors have earned more from price swings then vending, because they kept their profit in bitcoins. Also, Ross didn't spend much money like Cazes did. Who knows...maybe Cazes had stashed some secret wallets not yet discovered.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/#61d80fea2765


[3 Points] None:

maybe there is a secret USB drive with 28,000 bitcoins lol


[3 Points] ih8scammerss:

You really think someone from LE would steal bitcoin from a bust? Come on. If you can't trust our heroic public servants, who can you trust?


[2 Points] None:

[deleted]


[2 Points] ajax_jives:

I bet the mods and security administrator he employed were well paid too


[1 Points] lolroidshehe:

I find it a bit stranger how TXC went down in flames.

But anyway AK, I woulda thought your math would be stronger. It took you a month to run these numbers?

There is a lot to the story that is bullshit. Not just the money.


[1 Points] GanjaGirl4200:

Ya 23m that they actually found


[1 Points] traderouteilbgzt:

Most of the money is most likely on some random wallet that we will never find because the password is gone.


[1 Points] JesusHasSpoken:

ever thought about his tumbled imaginary wallet? JS if that man didn't hang him self we'll never know how much it really was.


[1 Points] _PrinterPam_:

Yeah, he 'hid' some in a Lamborghini, houses, business assets (hosting service), etc.


[1 Points] C_Lana_Zepamo:

So anyone wanna go on a treasure hunt in Thailand? Lets create a new legend, like the Amber Room.

Indiana Jones and Alexander's Hidden Booty.


[1 Points] chocolatemilk79:

It's possible they didn't actually seize all his assets, so he really could have any amount of money and we'd never truly know


[1 Points] None:

Cazes is still alive, on an island with tupac and elvis


[0 Points] JburnaDNM:

I said the same shit homie. She was cute but not 23 million in my account pushing lambos cute. My 2nd wife blew this chic out the water and I was on a broke boy e-5 navy salary but I also had the looks this nerd didn't. Thialand has some pretty girls but they are not really my taste either. The prettier they are the more problems you have. It's just like money.

Edit: ya there's probably another 10-20 million sitting somewhere we will never know about. Maybe the large bitcoin collider can crack that wallets private key.


[-1 Points] DrPoseidonShop:

I assume They Tortured and killed him in Jail for that money, Its Thailand for that Crime there he would get 100x the Death Row at there.