Bitcoin is your black market digital cash for everything from guns to drugs. And now, thanks to one pseudo-samurai, you can buy murder and anarchy too.
Kuwabatake Sanjuro introduced the Assassination Market to Forbes, which described the website as “a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations” in a Monday report.
The website lets users make anonymous contributions to bounties on government officials, which so far include National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander at 10 bitcoins, President Barack Obama with 40 bitcoins, and bitcoin public enemy No. 1: Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, for 124.14 bitcoins, or $75,000.
Bernanke has expressed the need to regulate digital currency since its emerging popularity as a viable form of alternative currency – a sentiment that has enraged many of its supporters.
According to Sanjuro, who lifted his alias from the famous samurai film “Yojimbo,” the would-be assassin just has to prove they did the deed to collect the bounty.
“Thanks to this system, a world without wars, dragnet panopticon-style surveillance, nuclear weapons, armies, repression, money manipulation, and limits to trade is firmly within our grasp for but a few bitcoins per person,” Sanjuro wrote in an email to Forbes.
“I also believe that as soon as a few politicians gets offed and they realize they’ve lost the war on privacy, the killings can stop and we can transition to a phase of peace, privacy and laissez-faire,” Sanjuro said.
The self-described anarchist, who plans to keep 1 percent of bounties as a commission for his services, said he was motivated to launch his crowdfunded killer’s hub after the widespread NSA spying came to light earlier this summer.
When asked if the Secret Service or the FBI were investigating the Assassination Market, which exists as a “dark web” site on an anonymous network that cannot be traced, both organizations declined to comment.
“I believe it will change the world for the better,” Sanjuro said.