A libertarian idealist known only as “The Dread Pirate Roberts” builds the Silk Road—an anonymous online black market that explodes into a billion-dollar empire—until the digital kingpin is unmasked, revealing how one man’s dream of radical freedom spiraled into crime, paranoia, and downfall.

Sources for this episode include:

American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
Joshuah Bearman’s reporting for Wired magazine

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