Please note that the following is a combination of speculation and observation.
First I'd like to comment about Zcash upgrades. Alphabay announced early last month that they would be implementing Zcash on July 1st. It would not make sense that they only started to write the code and implement it days after the day it was supposed to become a public feature.
I've been watching events unfold from the sidelines and I believe that the RCMP/FBI raid in Trois-Rivières was indeed Alphabay. I believe that LE may be holding an admin captive.
What we know:
Shortly after Alphabay went down, an article from tvanouvelles.ca came out saying the following:
There was a raid conducted in Canada by the RCMP integrated technology crime group and the FBI related to an international network of narcotics and arms sales.
The raid was carried out in a private residence and "mini warehouse" looking for computer equipment (it says nothing about drugs)
The people involved operated operated from in several places around the world with one man in Thailand leading a lavish lifestyle owning several cars.
The most important bit: The RCMP did not comment on it, merely stating that it was a search "at the center of an investigation". "There will be others later," said Capt. Camille Habel.
It's strange to me that the paid spokespeople for Alphabay didn't get word from the admins until 28 hours after it went down. I believe that LE may have convinced the admin to give them his hard drive encryption password. Even though the news said that there were no arrests, this is not necessarily true. Police are allowed to misdirect and lie to the media, they do this all the time.
I'd like to point out the following two items from the news article:
It seems that the people involved operated in several places around the world. (They know who was involved and that there was more than one person)
"The police also arrested a man in Thailand." (So this news article states that there were multiple arrests)
Now, on to the why you should be concerned bit...
Bitcoin blockchain analysis companies have been building unmasking technologies for the blockchain for years now, and they are quite elaborate and good at their job. I have a feeling that most vendors who were not in the IT field before they started vending will have failed to properly separate the source and destination of their bitcoins, at least a few times. I don't have all night to write this so I hope that /u/wombat2combat and others can help to shed light on this issue, and explain how companies like Chainalysis use KYC/AML laws, along with machine learning to match transactions via tumblers to the person buying BTC or the person cashing out their BTC.
It is entirely possible that if Alphabay comes back online, they will have stripped (re-routed) all tumbling and auto-encryption features to make it appear as though it's operating normally, while actually creating a complex database of metadata and BTC addresses to start investigations on users or vendors transacting more than $XYZ amount.
Please take this to heart.... "There will be others later," said Capt. Camille Habel.
The scary thing is that they are not boasting about their investigation!
Just because no one has ever been arrested due to a BTC transaction does not mean that a large uncloaked tx can't lead to an investigation.
I do hope I'm wrong about this. Be safe everyone.
Good read. Not a shit post like you usually see. Thanks for the condensed run down.