Cryptocurrency wallets linked to the Silk Road darknet marketplace are becoming active again, just under a year after US President Donald Trump issued a full pardon to its incarcerated founder, Ross Ulbricht.
On Tuesday, these Silk Road-associated wallets initiated transfers amounting to approximately $3.14 million in Bitcoin (BTC), according to data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham.
This marks the wallets’ most significant activity in five years, with only three minor test transactions recorded earlier this year.
All transfers were directed to an unknown cryptocurrency wallet, bc1qn. The main Silk Road-associated wallets currently hold around $38.4 million in Bitcoin, while the new address has only the recently transferred $3.14 million.
Cointelegraph has not been able to independently verify the owner of this new wallet and has contacted Ulbricht for a statement.
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In January, Trump granted a full pardon to Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a double life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 for his involvement in creating and operating Silk Road, a darknet marketplace for anonymous sales of illegal goods using Bitcoin.
Since the pardon, supporters have raised approximately $270,000 in Bitcoin donations for the Free Ross campaign, based on onchain data.
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Silk Road founder may still possess millions in unseized crypto wallets
While the US government seized a minimum of $3.36 billion in Bitcoin from Silk Road, some observers in the industry suggest that Ross held additional Bitcoin wallets not discovered during the asset seizure.
Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, disclosed that 430 BTC, approximately worth $47 million, remains in wallets likely connected to Ulbricht and has been dormant for over 13 years.
Another Bitcoin wallet, presumably belonging to Ulbricht, contains $8.3 million. Other than three nominal test transactions in the last 10 months, this wallet has remained inactive for 14 years, according to Arkham.
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