Hundreds of crypto wallets linked to now-defunct darknet marketplace Silk Road just moved Bitcoin, less than a year since US President Donald Trump gave its founder Ross Ulbricht a full and unconditional pardon.
On-chain data tracked by blockchain sleuth Arkham Intelligence shows that about 312 Silk Road wallets that had been dormant for over a decade, collectively moved $3.14 million worth of Bitcoin on Tuesday to a new wallet identified as “bc1q…ga54.”
Silk Road-associated wallets conducted only three small test transactions earlier this year. As of publication time, it’s still unclear why the wallets suddenly awakened on Tuesday. According to Arkham, the primary Silk Road wallets still hold around $38.37 million worth of BTC, while the newly created address holds only the $3.14 million received in the Tuesday transfers.
Is Ross Ulbricht Responsible For The Latest Transfers?
From 2011 to 2013, Ulbricht operated the notorious Silk Road marketplace under the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts.” He was arrested by the FBI in 2013 and later convicted on a laundry list of charges related to the creation and running of Silk Road.
11 years after being sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years without parole, President Trump signed the pardon that released Ross Ulbricht in January 2025.
While the US government confiscated roughly $3.36 billion in Bitcoin from Ulbricht’s Silk Road following the platform’s shutdown in 2013, some pundits claim that he had several Bitcoin wallets that were left out during the asset seizure.
In January, Coinbase Director Conor Grogan claimed to have identified roughly $47 million worth of BTC in wallets connected to Ulbricht, which had been dormant for over 13 years. On Tuesday, Grogan referenced that post in a response to Plasma Foundation’s pseudonymous operator “0xG00gly,” who flagged the latest Silk Road-linked transactions.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/decade-long-dormant-silk-road-linked-wallets-mysteriously-spring-to-life-transferring-bitcoin-to-new-address/
