Jason Harris is a world-class American glass artist and founder of Jerome Baker Designs, a leading functional glass company founded in 2003 and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The feds seized my website, JeromeBaker.com, during Operation Pipe Dreams, a federal effort to bring to justice those of us who sold hookahs and pipes on state lines. It was 2003. There weren’t many ongoing website hijackings. The internet didn’t really take off in earnest until 1996. At first there wasn’t much regulation there. Porn was big on the internet. And then he started buying and selling drug paraphernalia.
During Operation Pipe Dreams, when 55 people were arrested, including Tommy Chong, they confiscated my website. A Quicktime animated American flag has been placed on my website. It was a pixelated graphic and they made it look like it was flying in the wind. It read: “This website is owned by the United States Department of Justice.”
It was the new equivalent of confiscating my car or boat. Instead they confiscated my website. I got it back from someone for $700. It’s like getting back an old car confiscated by the police. I feel incredibly blessed to be working outside the original domain.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said at the time: “With the advent of the Internet, the illicit drug paraphernalia industry exploded. The drug paraphernalia business can now be accessed at home by anyone with a computer and internet access. And we know that in American homes, children and young adults are the fastest growing internet users. Simply put, the illicit drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge… Today, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force … has taken decisive action to eradicate the illegal drug paraphernalia industry by attacking the physical, financial, and internet. infrastructures.”
This experience got me interested in bitcoin early on. I started buying when Bitcoin was probably around $600. It appealed to me because I could do business with different parts of the world and not be banned. Ask anyone in the cannabis industry: They’re constantly getting account shutdowns, app shutdowns, etc. you have to deal with. I know those in the Bitcoin industry are going through the same thing. Bitcoin was also attractive to me because I like the “grey area” quality.
Being a part of the original Silk Road, being attractive to people who want to buy things online without being noticed goes hand in hand with what I do: making bongs. I had an intuition that the Bitcoin price was going to explode, so I was promoting it as much as possible as a payment method on JeromeBaker.com.
I no longer blow glass unless there is a special purpose. For a while, such a special purpose was for customers paying with bitcoin. I would blow them a Slyme Bubbler for a bitcoin. They would send bitcoins to Jerome Baker Designs’ public bitcoin address and email a shipping address. I still remember my last bitcoin purchase for a special piece. The price was $700.
I don’t see the same viability for other cryptocurrencies as I do with Bitcoin. I accept bitcoin at my workplace. You can buy products with Bitcoin. Tesla accepted bitcoin for a while and I’m sure they will repeat it. Ethereum and other altcoins are more about speculation. Bitcoin has volume and speed and holds value.
To me, bitcoin is its ability to be a mover and shaker, allowing everyone to keep a separate account with value and not have to worry about closing it. Bitcoin, as we have seen, is a great currency for all markets. It’s not only good for high-risk industries, as it’s a big part of its story, but also for nation-states looking to protect their populations from currency devaluation. Bitcoin is a biblical algorithm. It changed humanity forever.
This is a guest post by Jason Harris. The opinions expressed are their own and are not their own and BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.