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Silk Road 2.0 was an online black market that emerged on November 6, 2013, as a successor to the original Silk Road, which had been shut down by law enforcement. Operated by a new pseudonymous figure known as Dread Pirate Roberts, Silk Road 2.0 aimed to recreate the original's marketplace structure while enhancing security measures. The site included encrypted copies of its source code to facilitate rapid restoration in case of future shutdowns. However, the platform faced significant challenges shortly after its launch. In December 2013, three alleged administrators were arrested, leading to a temporary halt in operations. A new administrator, known as "Defcon," took over but soon announced that a vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol had compromised the site's escrow accounts, resulting in the theft of approximately $2.7 million in Bitcoin. On November 6, 2014, law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Europol, arrested Blake Benthall, the alleged operator under the alias "Defcon," as part of a broader crackdown on online illicit activities. The original creator of Silk Road 2.0, Thomas White, was also arrested and later pled guilty to various charges, including the creation of child pornography, highlighting the darker aspects of the site's operations.
Silk Road 2.0 was an online black market that emerged on November 6, 2013, as a successor to the original Silk Road, which had been shut down by law enforcement. Operated by a new pseudonymous figure known as Dread Pirate Roberts, Silk Road 2.0 aimed to recreate the original's marketplace structure while enhancing security measures. The site included encrypted copies of its source code to facilitate rapid restoration in case of future shutdowns. However, the platform faced significant challenges shortly after its launch. In December 2013, three alleged administrators were arrested, leading to...