Whatever happened to the crowd sourced assassination marketplace?

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Chris Monteiro

[ article has updates — Fake blockchain assassination market remembers his wallets are now worth $1.3 million and cashes out ]

[ archive link of site https://archive.is/tg2CG ]

I may have demonstrated that internet assassination is not a real thing last month, but there was one stone left unturned, this was the Assassination Marketplace crowdsourced site. What happened to the bitcoin apparently transferred to kill prominent figures? Is the site still up? Was it a scam? Thanks to a year of market scrapes from Gwern these questions can be answered for the first time!

For some background, proprietor ‘Kuwabatake Sanjuro’ gave an interview with Andy Greenberg when the site was launched in 2013 saying how he sees the market fulfilling a moral purpose of public figure accountability.

Accepting bitcoin through the ages

For the benefit of normals who were unaware of the site’s structure, the rules were as so:

Crowdfunded CryptoCloud Kills™
The concept is simple:
  1. Someone adds a name to the list along with some information.
  2. People add money to the dead pool.
  3. Other people predict when that person will die, but the content of the prediction stays hidden until after the fact.
  4. Correct predictions get the pool.

The list itself prior to the site’s shut down in June 2014 looked like so. I have added links to their respective wallets on blockchain.info. But what happened to the money? Was there any money to start with? Let’s examine each of the wallets.

Name | Country | Status | Pool size
Eva Carin Beatrice Ask | Sweden | Alive | ฿1.00
Jyrki Tapani Katainen |Finland | Alive| ฿1.00
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande | France | Alive | ฿1.00
Barack Hussein Obama II | United States | Alive | ฿40.26
Ben Shalom Bernanke | United States | Alive | ฿124.22
Keith Brian Alexander | United States | Alive | ฿10.49
James Robert Clapper, Jr. | United States | Alive | ฿1.97

What we can see is that the money has not moved at all since the site’s closure. Frankly, I’m surprised, I had expected so see it moving to an exchange or tumbler for immediate cash-out, yet that’s 180 BTC / $60k USD / £40k GBP left in limbo, perhaps never to move again.

Technically we don’t know if Sanjuro is still out there, potentially ready to pay out a bounty, but without the front end web site I doubt it. Yet why are there no further payments if the site is not really closed? Maybe he was tracked down and arrested?

I conclude that Sanjuro and his 180 BTC will live in the blockchain forever, as a testimony against trying to kill people over the internet.

<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<phxl|paper> and DANCE
* nmp3bot dances :D-<
* nmp3bot dances :D|-<
* nmp3bot dances :D/-<
<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i’m going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet

Update 2018

His Twitter account used the now defunct Tor Mail service, with email [email protected] so we can infer the FBI had access to any incriminating emails he may have received.

Also, at the latest Bitcoin rates, the 180 BTC is worth $1,200,000 / £900,000 which is absolutely insane.