Several wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht are reported to hold approximately 430 Bitcoins that have not been issued by the US government, according to Coinbase operator.
Conor Grogan, Coinbase's director of product strategy, said in a post on X on January 22 that it identified dozens of wallets linked to the founder of Silk Road. These wallets cumulatively hold around 430 Bitcoin (BTC), which has been untouched for over 13 years.
“I found ~430 BTC across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht that have not been confiscated by the USGovt and have not been touched for 13+ years. Back then they were probably dusty wallets, now, together, they're worth about $47M,” Grogan said.
Ulbricht left prison on January 21, 2025, following an unconditional full pardon by US President Donald Trump. Keeping a campaign promise, Trump pardoned him on his first full day in office after being sworn in on January 20.
The US government had seized 174,000 BTC from Silk Road in 2013. Ulbricht, who was arrested the same year, was sentenced in 2015 to two life sentences and 40 years on charges including running a criminal enterprise, drug distribution, and money laundering. Silk Road had used Bitcoin for transactions on its darknet marketplace.
While authorities shut down Silk Road and seized large amounts of Bitcoin, wallets containing small amounts at the time appear to have been overlooked. These wallets, now worth millions of dollars thanks to the appreciation of Bitcoin, remain untouched.
One such wallet holds 88.77 BTC, currently valued at over $9.4 million. Some of these wallets also include air assets, such as those from Bitcoin Cash 2017 (BCH) hard fork.
Despite the substantial value of these wallets today, Grogan speculated that Ulbricht might not have had access to the private keys. In response to concerns about releasing this information, Grogan clarified:
“Not sharing the addresses but they are all public (mentioned in test docs or just nearby) and already found by multiple sources. “
