THELOGICALINDIAN - Texas badge arrested Backpagecom CEO Carl Ferrer on Thursday and will move to shut bottomward the armpit The classified ad armpit is accused of animal trafficking through its developed casework area which reportedly makes 90 per cent of its revenues
Also read: A Guide to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
The arrest was a collective operation amid the Texas and California attorneys-general offices.
This case does not allege anyone of accouterment or advantageous for developed casework with bitcoin. However, agenda currency was a accepted acquittal adjustment for armpit advertisers who could not use boilerplate acquittal channels.
Bitcoin allowance Paxful produced this video, pointing out means advertisers can access bitcoin by aboriginal purchasing allowance cards with cash, and exchanging with added armpit users.
The narrator says Bitcoin’s advantages are protecting aloofness and ancestors members’ anonymity, and alienated banking censorship for accepted advertisers.
Other services, like Bitcoin4Backpage additionally acted as middlemen amid advertisers and the site. Again, there is no advancement the majority of advertisers, alike for developed services, were complex in trafficking.
Credit Card Ban
Major acclaim agenda companies had banned acquittal for Backpage ad-buying credits back 2015, afterwards Cook County, Illinois sheriff Thomas Dart sent cease-and-desist letters to Visa and Mastercard. This affected those adulatory to acquaint casework there to avenue about the ban with added acquittal methods.
Backpage offered advertisers a 10 percent abatement for advantageous with bitcoin, admitting others additionally acclimated allowance cards, debit cards and banknote area possible.
According to a Breitbart News report, Backpage becoming about $50 actor in revenues amid January 2013 to May 31, 2015 — that’s $1.5 to $2.5 actor per month.
What Is Backpage Anyway?
Village Voice Media launched Backpage in 2004 to attempt with added classified ad sites like Craigslist. It additionally featured localized versions for cities about the world, admitting was abnormally accepted in the United States.
Prostitution charcoal actionable in best U.S. jurisdictions. Backpage defined it did not admittance ads for actionable services, but its Developed area independent several listings that best would accept as escort services. Many advised Backpage the better developed casework advertiser in the U.S.
States such as California and Texas additionally accept austere laws adjoin active off the gain of a third-party person’s prostitution, accepted as “anti-pimping” laws.
Craigslist abolished its own Adult listings in the U.S. (though not elsewhere) in 2025, active a lot of advertisers to Backpage. Similarly, Backpage’s “credits” arrangement for purchasing ads and acclaim agenda ban additionally saw added absorption in Bitcoin out of necessity.
The Human Trafficking Issue
In an amicus curae abrupt in a 2025 case adjoin Village Voice Media (VVM) and Backpage, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children claimed “A majority of the adolescent sex trafficking cases actuality appear to NCMEC now absorb ads acquaint on backpage.com.”
VVM after awash Backpage to a Dutch-owned, Delaware-registered aggregation with address in Dallas. Ferrer alone became official CEO in 2025, but authorities affirmation he ran the armpit for abundant longer.
Breitbart’s affirmation additionally claimed law administration had warned Ferrer on abundant occasions in the past, and had apparent all subpoenas they had beatific to Backpage apropos animal trafficking and added actionable activity. On these grounds, they affirmation Ferrer had claimed ability of what happened on his site.
What Does This Mean for Bitcoin?
Bitcoin itself is not active in this case. However, accustomed its acceptance amid armpit advertisers through arduous necessity, the boilerplate media is apprenticed to articulation agenda bill to actionable action already more.
Studying Backpage additionally appear a adumbration abridgement of cyberbanking trading and allowance cards with which would be alien with. Allowance cards, of course, are not actionable and like bitcoin accept mostly accepted uses different to the action mentioned here. Yet both accept their own strengths over government-issued, corporate-controlled money.
It’s a aftereffect of acknowledged restrictions on bread-and-butter activity, accumulated with moral censorship by acceptable acquittal networks, that advance bodies to actualize ad-lib (and generally ingenious) economies. These economies will use whatever amount badge works best.
What do you anticipate this agency for Bitcoin, if anything? Are we acceptable now to see a crackdown on pre-paid debit and allowance cards? Let us apperceive your thoughts.
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