Bitcoin 'Assassination Market' Appears on Tor
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A Tor hidden service called Assassination Market emerged, allowing anonymous users to crowdfund Bitcoin bounties on public figures. Created by someone using the pseudonym 'Kuwabatake Sanjuro,' the site operated on a prediction market model where contributors would 'predict' a target's death date, with the correct predictor (presumably the assassin) collecting the pot. By November 2013, bounties included ~124 BTC on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and ~40 BTC on President Obama. The creator told Forbes his goal was to make politicians 'dare not hold office.' The site represented one of the darkest applications of Bitcoin's censorship-resistant properties.