Dormant Silk Road Wakes, Moving Millions in Bitcoin

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Hundreds of cryptocurrency wallets linked to the defunct Silk Road darknet marketplace activated on Tuesday after a decade of dormancy. These wallets collectively moved Bitcoin into a single, unidentified address.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence reported that approximately 312 wallets transferred $3.14 million worth of BTC to address “bc1q…ga54.” The reason for this sudden activity remains unclear, and the related wallets still contain an estimated $41.3 million in Bitcoin.

The activity prompted Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, to resurface a January post on X where he identified about $47 million in BTC tied to Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was fully pardoned earlier this year by US President Donald Trump, having previously been sentenced to life in prison.

Ulbricht, whose platform was instrumental in popularizing Bitcoin for transactions, gave his first public speech in May following the pardon. He spoke on themes of freedom, decentralization, and the empowering potential of technology.