Cryptocurrency wallets linked to the darknet marketplace Silk Road are becoming active again, nearly a year after US President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to its incarcerated founder, Ross Ulbricht.
On Tuesday, these Silk Road-tagged wallets moved around $3.14 million in Bitcoin (BTC), as reported by blockchain analytics platform Arkham.
The 176 transactions represent the most significant movement from the wallets in five years, with only three minor test transfers conducted earlier this year.
All transfers were sent to an unrecognized cryptocurrency wallet, bc1qn. The main Silk Road-related wallets still contain around $38.4 million in Bitcoin, while the newly created wallet now holds the $3.14 million received in these transactions.
Cointelegraph has not been able to verify the ownership of the new wallet independently and has contacted Ulbricht for comments.
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In January, Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a double life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 for creating and managing Silk Road, a darknet marketplace that enabled anonymous transactions of illegal items using Bitcoin.
After the pardon, supporters contributed approximately $270,000 in Bitcoin donations to the Free Ross campaign, according to on-chain data.
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Silk Road founder may still possess millions in unseized crypto wallets
Although the US government seized over $3.36 billion in Bitcoin from Silk Road, some experts suggest that Ross may have multiple Bitcoin wallets not discovered during the asset seizure.
Conor Grogan, director at Coinbase, disclosed that 430 BTC, valued at approximately $47 million, remains in wallets likely associated with Ulbricht, dormant for over 13 years.
Another wallet potentially belonging to Ulbricht has approximately $8.3 million in Bitcoin. With the exception of three small test transactions over the past 10 months, this wallet has been inactive for 14 years, according to Arkham.
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