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Large Percentage of Bitcoins Used for Illicit Purchases: Study

By Colby Adams

Nearly all digital coins studied by researchers at the University of California in San Diego were used to purchase goods from a black market website, a recent study found. The findings from a study scheduled to be presented next month in Barcelona indicate that nearly every digital coin issued through the Bitcoin protocol and used in merchant transactions at some point likely passed through Silk Road, an online marketplace for narcotics and other banned goods. The study, which examined transactions between January and September 2012, focused primarily on how the cryptocurrency can be traced. "There's not a lot of legitimate...

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