🌎 Silk Road Founder’s Unclaimed Bitcoin Worth $47M

Unclaimed Bitcoin Worth $47M Linked to Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht

According to a recent claim by Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s director of product strategy, several wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, hold approximately 430 Bitcoin that were not confiscated by the U.S. government. These wallets, which have remained untouched for over 13 years, are now collectively worth around $47 million.

Grogan revealed this information in a post, stating that he identified dozens of wallets tied to Ulbricht. One such wallet holds 88.77 BTC, currently valued at over $9.4 million. Additionally, some of these wallets contain airdropped assets, such as those from the 2017 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork.

Ulbricht’s Release and Unclaimed Assets

Ross Ulbricht was released from prison on January 21, 2025, following a full and unconditional pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump. The pardon was issued on Trump’s first full day in office, keeping a campaign promise.

It’s worth noting that the U.S. government had seized 174,000 BTC from Silk Road in 2013. Ulbricht was arrested the same year and sentenced in 2015 to two life sentences plus 40 years on charges including operating a criminal enterprise, drug distribution, and money laundering.

Access to Unclaimed Assets Uncertain

While the value of these wallets is substantial, Grogan speculated that Ulbricht may not have access to the private keys. In response to concerns about publicizing this information, Grogan clarified that the wallet addresses are already public and tracked by multiple sources.

“Not going to share the addresses but all of them are public (cited in trial docs or directly adjacent ) and tracked already by multiple sources.” – Conor Grogan

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