The source says Adrian Chen’s mainstream report on Silk Road 15 years ago drove user growth from about 1,000 to more than 10,000, as Bitcoin traded near $9.90 on June 1.
According to the source, Gawker writer Adrian Chen published the first mainstream exposé of Silk Road (an online black market), triggering a sharp rise in the platform’s membership from roughly 1,000 users to more than 10,000 almost overnight. The source also says Bitcoin was trading around $9.90 on June 1 during that period. The post frames the episode as an early moment when media attention intersected with Bitcoin’s adoption, as Silk Road was one of the first widely known uses of Bitcoin for online transactions.