Ross Ulbricht, The Silk Road Founder Pardoned By Trump Soon After His Inauguration, Receives A Whopping $31 Million Worth Of Bitcoin In Donation Wallet

A wallet linked to Ross Ulbricht, the creator of illegal drug marketplace Silk Road, received over $30 million in Bitcoin BTC/USD on Saturday, sparking intrigue among the cryptocurrency community.

What Happened: According to on-chain tracker Lookonchain, Ulbricht’s donation wallet received a transfer of 300 BTC, approximately $31.47 million. Hours later, the stash was transferred to another wallet, details about which remained unknown as of this writing.

A message sent to the Instagram accounts of Ulbricht and his wife by Benzinga did not receive an immediate response.

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Soon after, theories and conjectures arose, with observers making various claims. A cryptocurrency commentator called CR1337 said, “You want to tell me that a single entity donated 300 BTC, more than $30M, to Ross Ulbricht, and that this is not just one of his old wallets and he sent it to himself?”

Another user, Execute, meanwhile, invoked the ideas of “freedom, privacy, and justice” while discussing the massive transfer.

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Meanwhile, Ulbricht has managed to raise nearly $1.3 million in pledged BTC by auctioning off personal items from before and during his imprisonment through the Bitcoin auction platform Scarce City. The items included his prison ID card, prison notebok and artworks he created while imprisoned.

Why It Matters: Ulbricht was pardoned by President Donald Trump earlier this year as part of a campaign promise.

Ulbricht was serving a double life sentence since 2013 for creating the darknet website Silk Road—a hub of the illegal trafficking of heroin, cocaine, LSD, and other substances, all paid for in Bitcoin.

Shortly after the pardon, wallets belonging to Ulbricht were discovered, containing as many as 430 BTC unmoved for over 13 years.

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