Ok, I will tell you something today... I don't want to create a new main post for this, is more like a "cowboy" warning in the SN Saloon.
If somebody else would like to investigate more, following the money, an investigative journalist or something, please go ahead, take my suspicion and follow the facts, write the story. I am giving you just another point of view.
Silk Road leads to Samourai
I said many times that Silk Road case was sting operation, prepared by the feds FROM THE BEGINNING. I studied a lot that case, because I lived those days.
Silk Road was the first hit the feds wanted to do against Bitcoin because it was getting too much attention.
TLDR:
Silk Road was created by the feds, then they coopted/convinced Ross to run it. They needed a patsy. Even that he didn't know, they have those abilities to do such thing.
they let Ross to run it, watching it closely and even encourage it
they wait until it became big so will have a huge impact on Bitcoin community.
they also accumulate all the info about its users for "future use"
they put Ross in jail for life so he cannot speak anymore about this
Now, after many years, Samourai operation got "busted". It looks like busted, but is not, is just a facade.
I will call it here before anybody will say anything: Samourai was another sting operation organized by the feds, for years. Same as Silk Road.
Why?
Obviously: to hit hard again in Bitcoin community and also keeping away all the normies and those newbies that just entered into this world.
The whole story of Samourai stinks. This is linked to way more other operations then we can imagine.
I personally do not believe that the Samourai devs were not feds, pretending to be bitcoiners. Yeah maybe deep inside they were bitcoiners, but working for the feds from the beginning.
TLDR:
feds couldn't link so many bitcoin addresses, users, wallets without collaboration from such a service
this whole story of "money laundering" stinks badly and is the fabricated story to get them jailed and later lose end of them, converted into some kind of protecting witness or something like that. Their faces will not be anymore in the news.
feds needed such tool to be able to hit hard Bitcoin community
Dear Darth, do you think if Liquid Network is fed's sting operation? Or even Boltz? Peg-out in Liquid and swapping LN to on-chain on Boltz can also be useful in collecting addresses and users just like in Silk Road and Samourai.
Silk Road leads to Samourai