A new statement claiming to be from the founder of Silk Road 2.0 arrived on both Silk Road forums and Pastebin today, detailing the new Tor-powered security procedures that owners say will keep users entirely anonymous. "This overhaul marks the dawn of a brand new era for hidden services," the statement says. "Never forget that they can only ever seize assets – they can never arrest our spirit." The statement also encourages old suppliers and customers to reconnect on the relaunched site, saying the new procedures "include emergency strategies to ensure that, in the event of Silk Road’s demise once more, no member will lose their coins."

As previously reported, the new site relies on Bitcoin as a currency, and uses the onion-routing service Tor to conceal users, but it remains unclear how robust these security practices will be in the face of newfound attention from law enforcement. Still, the new statement expressed confidence that the law enforcement would not keep the site down for long. "It took the FBI two and a half years to do what they did," it reads. "But four weeks of temporary silence is all they got."