Silk Road stash. Another $200 million in “dirty” bitcoins have been discovered
The assets were distributed to many addresses and remained inactive for years. However, they have now become active again. It is unknown who is making the transfers
17.12.2025
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Over the past week, ancient wallets from the closed darknet marketplace Silk Road have made hundreds of transactions to fragment bitcoins across new addresses and hide their origin. These transactions went virtually unnoticed by the community. GetBlock AML Research publishes a detailed overview of the situation.
Coin discovery
Old Silk Road wallets containing bitcoins that were not seized after the marketplace was shut down were discovered by Coinbase’s top manager, Conor Grogan, in early 2025. At the time of discovery, the addresses, which had been inactive for more than 13 years, contained approximately 430 BTC.
| One of the addresses discovered by Grogan |
| 1CQvW4U4ZEbdmazX2Rbn5URWgd6MfWoPx1 |
What is happening now
The network of inactive Silk Road addresses turned out to be much larger than Grogan had anticipated. A week ago, these wallets began quietly transferring small amounts of BTC to 85 new addresses, which have already accumulated more than 2295 BTC (almost $200 million). The transfers are still ongoing, so the total amount of bitcoins could be significantly higher.
It is noteworthy that the transfers are made through disposable addresses. This may indicate that the funds are being hidden or disguised to conceal their source.
Transfers from Silk Road addresses. Data: Arkham
Ross Ulbricht: who is the “king of the darknet” and why was he sentenced to two life terms?
We talk about his ideas to create a market free from government interference and how it turned into two life sentences.
Who owns the coins?
It is not known for certain who is behind these transfers. It is most likely that the transactions are being carried out by Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the darknet marketplace. He was in prison until January 2025, but Donald Trump pardoned Ulbricht immediately after taking office as US president.
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