Ultimately, Burcher was orderd to decrypt his drive because the government both knew it was his and knew part of what was on it.[0] In Ulbricht's case there is

Ultimately, Burcher was orderd to decrypt his drive because the government both knew it was his and knew part of what was on it.[0] In Ulbricht's case there is a compelling argument that the bitcoin's contained in the wallet on his computer(assuming it was on his computer and not the server) are his. The question is what does the government know about those coins. Clearly, if they know Ulbricht's bitcoin id/public key, then they can look up his transactions in the block chain. If they don't, I'm not sure what they could possibly know. Of course, given Ulbricht's apparently atrocious OPSEC, it seems likely his password is Ludwig von Mises and the FBI won't need his help at all. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Boucher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Boucher