[datasink]

My understanding is that the real risk is taken by the buyer. The seller can anonymously receive payment, then drop the drug envelope into a random postbox. On the buying end, regardless of Tor and Bitcoin, they still need to have it shipped to a real physical location.

[icebraining]

The seller still has to trade the bitcoins for something (either buy something with them, or trade them for $).

Unless they only buy virtual goods, there's a trail to follow.

[lwat]

The seller can easily buy virtual goods, like other e-currencies, and hide his trail that way.

[icebraining]

Yes, that's what I said. But on the other hand, the BTC market is still very poor. Besides domains and hosting, what other virtual goods are there to buy?

[jbri]

Real money. Sell bitcoins to people who are buying them in order to purchase drugs.

There's nothing inherently linking the two transactions of "X bitcoins transferred from wallet #1 to wallet #2" and "Y USD transferred from Bob to Joe" - with sufficient care and redirection, you can make it very difficult to track down exactly where the bitcoins are being traded for real money.

[mehwoot]

Well yes but you are assuming you can find a buyer who is willing to do a straight bank transfer rather than using an exchange. And most people much prefer to use the exchanges. Especially if they are buying drugs with the bitcoins; if they did a bank transfer to a person selling drugs, they could have just used that payment method in the first place.

[icebraining]

But now you have to trust "Joe" to make sure his real identity can't be easily linked from his bitcoin addresses, or else they'll find out about the USD transfer.