Even the pseudonymous mastermind of the site, the Dread Pirate Roberts, gave an interview and posted many thousands of words to the Silk Road's users forum. The one voice that's been missing, however, is that of Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old Texan accused of actually running the site from behind the Dread Pirate Roberts mask.

As Ulbricht faces trial on conspiracy charges that include running a narcotics ring, laundering money, and selling counterfeit IDs, a jury may now be hearing Ulbricht tell his story for the first time. The FBI has said it found a journal on Ulbricht's laptop, seized at the time of his arrest. Those journal entries have been entered into evidence against Ulbricht. And they seem to detail everything from Ulbricht's time growing psychedelic mushrooms in a remote Texas cabin to serve as the Silk Road's first product, to his early days trying to code a stable website, to recruiting Silk Road staff and attracting a coterie of drug dealers.

Ulbricht's defense team will no doubt challenge the authenticity of the journal entries. His lead defense attorney Joshua Dratel argued in his opening statement that Ulbricht had created the Silk Road, but gave it up after a few months and was only "lured" back to the site in 2013 to be framed by the real Dread Pirate Roberts. The defense hasn't yet explained how the journals ended up on Ulbricht's laptop, and declined WIRED's request for further comment.