You're really stretching the truth here. 1.2b/10m = $120. That's a reasonable value.
Instead of simply saying that, you say "it's highest values" and "they would have to be priced at July 2013 high on MT. Gox."
Just so we're clear.. July 2013 was in the midst of the Mt Gox scandal, and the price had just recently tanked from $220 in april, down to $66 in early july. In June Mt Gox had suspended withdrawls.
It's a huge stretch of the truth to estimate all values over 2.5 years in real time.
They are retroactively estimating the number of bitcoins that passed through from February 2011 (when bitcoin was worth some $0.10 or something near there) but pricing the net total over 2.5 years as of the 2013 value. (That's already a magnitude of 100, so the difference between 200-130 there is quite little).
You're right I didn't give accurate pricing numbers, I'll double check next time before I specify months and values, but my main point still stands. (Actually prior to Feburary 2013 Bitcoin was under $10 - so again their estimate is several magnitudes off.)
Of course, if he kept his earnings in Bitcoins (which he did), then they would fluctuate with the market price.. to about $120, which was about the market price when he was arrested.
And the truth is, Bitcoin's price was above that amount for most of 2013, and all of 2014, and today it stands above that price. So he could have sold his Bitcoins for even more than $120.
Future potential incoming isn't an estimate of market-price of goods. We are discussing the size of the drug business, not their potential gain as investors in Bitcoin (that would be investment income).
Sure it's not $0.10, it's $0.7 - and yes the price is mostly around $10 - which is my point; that the estimate they given is incredulous unless literally 95% of their transactional volume over 2 years occurred between April 2013 - July 2013.
yes the price is mostly around $10 - which is my point
Ok.. thanks.. that was my point. The FBI estimate might be off by an order of magnitude, but the amount you made up was off by TWO orders of magnitude. At least the FBI estimate had some tie to reality (the value at the time he was arrested).
> They are retroactively estimating the number of bitcoins that passed through from February 2011 (when bitcoin was worth some $0.10 or something near there) but pricing the net total over 2.5 years as of the 2013 value.
Surely the bulk of the activity came later on in Silk Road's life though right? It's not like each day had the same number of transactions.. For all we know, the FBI looked at all of the transactions into and out of SR and did a perfectly weighted average pricing query.
Yes it probably did, that's why $213 million by the prosecution sounds plausible, - but considering bitcoin did not break $100 till April 2013 and their estimate spans 2.5 years through July it 1.2 billion sounds highly implausible.
Instead of simply saying that, you say "it's highest values" and "they would have to be priced at July 2013 high on MT. Gox."
Just so we're clear.. July 2013 was in the midst of the Mt Gox scandal, and the price had just recently tanked from $220 in april, down to $66 in early july. In June Mt Gox had suspended withdrawls.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/07/05/bitcoin-operator-m...