Who moved $3M in Silk Road BTC? Dormant addresses spring back to life

A total of 33.7 bitcoin (BTC), worth over $3 million, has been moved from wallets linked to Silk Road after nearly five years of inactivity.

It’s unclear exactly who’s behind the transfers, though the consolidated funds were later sent to a Coinbase Prime deposit address.

The transactions — 176 in all — were flagged by X account DarkWebInformer, which referenced a bundle of Silk Road-labelled addresses on blockchain explorer Arkham.

Read more: How much bitcoin will Ross Ulbricht have if Trump sets him free?

Small quantities of BTC were transferred from many separate addresses within the bundle to a single consolidation address, bc1qnysx9sr0s7uw39awr3hh099d5m0lvrnxz7ga54.

Approximately 24 hours after the last transfer from the Silk Road bundle, the 33.7 BTC were sent on to an intermediate address before moving to an address labelled “Coinbase Prime Deposit.”

Prior to the recent activity, the last outgoing transaction from the bundled addresses was sent on February 2, 2021.

Approximately 416 BTC worth $37.5 million remains in the addresses.

The Silk Road saga

Silk Road was a (predominantly drugs-focused) darknet marketplace operational between 2011 and 2013. Sales were settled in BTC, with the site taking a fee.

It was shut down following founder Ross Ulbricht’s arrest, and 144,336 BTC were seized. The funds, sold in 2017 for $48 million, would be worth $13 billion today.

Further seizures of funds related to Silk Road occurred in November 2020 and November 2021, for over $1 billion and $3 billion worth of BTC, respectively.

A year later, James “Jimmy” Zhong pled guilty to stealing these funds from the marketplace in 2012.

Two former federal agents were also charged for “stealing digital currency during their investigation” of Silk Road.

After serving almost 10 years, Ulbricht was freed via a presidential pardon in January.

Read more: Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht but Silk Road deputy remains behind bars

Who’s behind the moves?

It’s uncertain who made the transfers, but wild speculation amongst X users ranges from the suggestion of an “FBI agent fixing to retire,” to Mt Gox’s Mark Karpeles, “the real Silk Road owner.”

In addition to the Silk Road bundle, Arkham lists separately labelled entities including “US Government: Silk Road DOJ Confiscated Funds,” “US Government: Ross Ulbricht Confiscated Funds,” “James Zhong,” and “Silk Road Hacker.”

The transfers originate from “legacy” BTC addresses beginning with the number one, indicating they’re old, Silk Road-era addresses.

Indeed, their transaction histories show activity before remaining funds were moved into labelled seizure wallets 12 years ago. The recent consolidation transfers are of the remaining low-value “dust” left behind after the seizure period.

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