From pizza to the black market

[Parishy]

From pizza to the black market

On May 22, 2010, a Florida developer paid 10,000 bitcoins in exchange for two pizzas, a purchase widely recognized as the first transaction ever made using the cryptocurrency. Today, those same bitcoins would be worth almost $75 million!

After this modest introduction, bitcoin became a popular means of payment in the criminal underworld because of its anonymous nature. From 2011 to 2013, Ross Ulbricht, using the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, ran the dark web site Silk Road, as an online black market. The site was built on a Tor network, allowing for anonymous internet surfing, and bitcoin payments, allowing for anonymous payments. The site gained in popularity until Ulbricht was finally discovered to be the site's founder, arrested in a San Francisco public library, and sentenced to a lifetime in prison for drug trafficking.

Of course, now bitcoin can be used to make purchases for so much more.