"Bitcoin is turning ten, and like many of us, I feel like a proud parent, having watched it grow into its potential over the years. I guess I’m the estranged father in prison though, who can’t be there to help raise his kid."

Just when the Silk Road’s saga of dirty money and double-dealing seemed to be winding down, one of the federal agents who investigated the site has added an audacious footnote: What looks like a brazen attempt to flee the United States after he was convicted and sentenced to prison for corruption in his handling of the case. Former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges was re-arrested on Thursday of last week, just a day before he was scheduled to turn...

It's been nearly a year since a jury determined that Ross Ulbricht had created and run the anonymous black market for drugs known as the Silk Road, a conviction that resulted in a life sentence without parole. Today his defense team finally had their chance to contest that outcome, and with it, one more chance to free the 31-year-old man who’s become the face of the Dark Web. As the first significant step in Ulbricht’s appeal, his defense on Tuesday filed...

Ross Ulbricht, the convicted creator of the online drug market Silk Road, did not run the site alone. Over its three year history, Ulbricht hired a small staff of forum moderators and market administrators to help keep the cogs of a multi-million dollar business moving—many of whom have now been apprehended by the authorities. There were two crucial but lesser-known players involved who have yet to be publicly unmasked, however.

Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht's first published letter from prison addressed supporters and attendees of this year's liberty-focused New Hampshire event known

The Silk Road saga had a stunning coda in April, when two of the federal agents who investigated the site were charged with stealing from it as well. One of those two agents has now reached a plea deal with prosecutors. Shaun Bridges, a computer expert for the US Secret Service, is accused of stealing $820,000 in bitcoins from various drug dealers on the site.

THE DESCENT WAS stunning. Chris Tarbell, a special agent from the New York FBI office, was in a window seat, watching a green anomaly in a sea of blue as it resolved into Iceland’s severe, beautiful landscape. On approach to Keflavík International Airport, he could now see the city of Reykjavik coming into view. And just beyond that, perched on the edge of a moss-covered lava field: the massive matte-white box that housed the Thor Data Center.

The postman only rang once. Curtis Green was at home, greeting the morning with 64 ounces of Coca-Cola and powdered mini doughnuts. Fingers frosted synthetic white, he was startled to hear someone at the door. It was 11 am, and surprise visits were uncommon at his modest house in Spanish Fork, Utah, a high-desert hamlet in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. Green ambled over, adjusting his camouflage fanny pack.