As Bitcoin advocates attempt to put the electronic currency forward as a legitimate alternative to traditional currencies, its association with the buying and selling of drugs and other illicit substances, content and services online is constantly held-against the e-currency.
The link between Bitcoins and online drug sales was highlighted again yesterday when the disappearance of one deep marketplace wiped 15 percent off of the value of the currency.
1 Bitcoin was worth $293.34 on Monday (March 16th) - and fell to $250.16 in the early hours of this morning (March 19th) after Evolution, a leading online drug marketplace went offline.
It seems that the disappearance of the Evolution market may have been the result of a scam.
Less than an hour before the site disappeared a known Evolution vendor took to Reddit to warn of the scam in the DarkNetMarkets subreddit. The thread was titled, "EVOLUTION EXIT SCAM."
The user warned: "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’ve been suspicious the past few days."
"I have admin access to see parts of the back end, the admins [of Evolution] are preparing an exit scam with all the funds. Not a single withdrawal has gone through in almost a week."
An update was added by the user after the site vanished: "Servers have gone down, including back up server for staff. I’m sorry for everyone’s losses, I’m gutted and speechless. I feel so betrayed."
The vendor claimed to have personally lost $20,000 (€18,700).
Posts on the DarkNetMarkets subreddit since the site went down back-up the claims that individual users have lost large amounts of money.
Unlike the closing down of other illegal market places like Silk Road, and Silk Road 2.0, no closure warning notice was posted on the Evolution site - it just vanished.
Noticed posted on Silk Road after the site was shutdown
The hit on the currency came as the UK government announced during it's budget statement that it is going to invest £10m (€14m) into researching the "opportunities and challenges" presented by the emergence of digital currencies like Bitcoin.
The British government is also going to use more resources to improve the policing of these currencies, with a focus on stopping money laundering, and protecting consumers from online scams.
