The online drug cryptomarket 'Silk Road' has been oft-characterised as an 'eBay for drugs', with customers thought to be drug consumers making personal use-sized purchases.

Our research demonstrates that drug dealers sourcing stock online were also likely to have been customers there. Using 'webometric' quantitative methods, we found that a substantial proportion of transactions on Silk Road could be characterised as 'business-to-business', with sales in quantities and at prices typical of purchases made by drug dealers sourcing stock.

High price-quantity purchases generated at least one third of all revenue generated on this cryptomarket as estimated in September 2013, one week before the FBI shut the site. This paper assesses how transformative online drugs cryptomarkets might be, considering how international the market was, and the implications of its market location operating to a substantial extent at the wholesale/broker level for conflict, intimidation and violence. The use of webometric methods will be evaluated.

There will be time for questions at the end of the talk.