Покупатели и продавцы проводят все денежные операции через [[Bitcoin]] — криптовалюту, которую в сочетании с Tor можно использовать анонимно. Поскольку курс обмена биткоина даже за короткий промежуток времени может сильно колебатьсяменяться, используется [[хеджирование]] по отношению к доллару США. Покупатели регистрируются на Silk Road бесплатно, а продавцы обязаны покупать аккаунт через аукцион, чтобы уменьшить риск мошенничества<ref>«…we shut down new seller accounts briefly, but have now opened them up again. This time, we are limiting the supply of new seller accounts and auctioning them off to the highest bidders. Our hope is that by doing this, only the most professional and committed sellers will have access to seller accounts. For the time being, we will be releasing one new seller account every 48 hours, though this is subject to change. If you want to become a seller on Silk Road, click „become a seller“ at the bottom of the homepage, read the seller contract and the Seller’s Guide, click „I agree“ at the bottom, and then you’ll be taken to the bidding page. Here, you should enter the maximum bid you are willing to make for your account upgrade. The system will automatically outbid the next highest bidder up to this amount.» Silk Road admin account, http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=360.0</ref><ref>"We received a threat from a very disturbed individual who said they would pose as a legitimate vendor, but send carcinogenic and poisonous substances instead of real products and because seller registration is open, they would just create a new account as soon as they got bad feedback. This was shocking and horrifying to us and we immediately closed new seller registration. Of course we need new sellers, though, so we figured that charging for new seller accounts would deter this kind of behavior. " http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=360.msg3574#msg3574</ref>.
