Following President Donald Trump's pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht Tuesday, the Bitcoin community has rallied, pouring crypto into Ulbricht’s donation fund at FreeRoss.org. Does he really need it?
Conor Grogan of San Francisco’s cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said Ulbricht might already own millions of Bitcoins. Grogan noted that around 430 BTC—worth approximately $47 million—awaits untouched in wallets possibly linked to Ulbricht. The wallets are dormant and have not been used for more than 13 years.
“I found ~430 BTC across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht that were not confiscated by the [U.S. government] and have been untouched for 13+ years,” Grogan has posted on X. “Back then these were probably dust wallets, now, collectively, they are worth about $47 million,” Grogan continued.
Arkham Intelligence confirms that fourteen Bitcoin addresses associated with the Silk Road hold a total of $47,000,000 in Bitcoin. Grogan’s estimate was confirmed. The cluster wallets have been identified. “Silk Road” Arkham begins with the following account: “1CQv” Grogan revealed in a screenshot that the wallet alone contains over $9,000,000 in Bitcoin.
Decrypt It is not yet known whether the U.S. Government has seized these funds or if these wallets belong to Ulbricht. At least one wallet included in Arkham’s Silk Road cluster—the account identified as “Silk Road: Individual X (1HQ3G)”—was previously accessed by the U.S. government during a forfeiture procedure in November 2020.
How to store Bitcoin in a wallet “1HQ3G” The first transfer was made in 2020. At the time, the coin value exceeded $1 billion. There were rumors that Ulbricht managed to access the funds and make transfers even when he was behind bars. It was only days later that the U.S. government solved the riddle by announcing it had confiscated the funds from a hacker—identified only as “Individual X”—who had stolen the Bitcoin from a Silk Road account in 2012 or 2013.
The private keys of any wallets containing a Bitcoin fortune of more than $47 million that belonged to the former Silk Road founder are unknown. It’s possible that the money is lost forever. As much as 20 percent of Bitcoin total are believed to reside in wallets of owners who have died, or whose keys were lost. Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet, for example, contains around $115 billion.
Ulbricht is yet to give an interview since his release. He has also not responded to Grogan at X. Decrypt Ulbricht was contacted by us for a comment.
Since his release on Tuesday from the Federal Penitentiary, Ulbricht has received a steady stream of donations. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken donated $111 111 to Ulbricht.
Arkham Intelligence reports that his wallet has collected 2.62 BTC (approximately $272,000), which includes Kraken’s donation. Ulbricht’s address has also collected an additional $4,615 worth of Ethereum, USDC (USDT), Tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), and Binance Coin.
“At this rate, he'll have $1 million in 3 days,” “Pete Rizzo, journalist at X.
Although it is unknown if Ulbricht will be able to control the wallets, the U.S. federal government may still attempt to take any Silk Road related money. A federal judge approved the sale earlier this month of seized Silk Road Bitcoin worth $6.5 billion. Experts in crypto law tell Decrypt Federal authorities can seize any Silk Road Bitcoin.
“If the authorities find assets later that they can link to the original crime(s), they could try to seize these even after release, assuming the statute of limitations has not expired,” Eli Cohen, general counsel at Centrifuge tokenized assets platform, said Decrypt.
The U.S. Department of Justice has seized a large amount of Bitcoins that the United States now holds. Cohen mentioned the 50,676 Bitcoins the IRS confiscated from James Zhong in November of 2021, a hacker on the Silk Road. “Normally, for federal crimes, the authorities would have frozen or confiscated any funds they believe are proceeds of the crime, including crypto like Bitcoin,” Cohen said.
