The recently pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founding father of the dark web marketplace Silk Road, looks to still hold thousands and thousands of dollars in Bitcoin. This comes following the revelation of wallets linked to the Silk Road founder, containing coins that remained untouched while he was in prison. 

Ross Ulbricht Reportedly Still Holds $44 Million In Bitcoin

In an X post, On-chain sleuth Conor Grogan revealed that the Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht still holds $44 million in Bitcoin. Grogan stated that he found 430 BTC across dozens of wallets related to Ulbricht that weren’t confiscated by the US government and have been untouched for over 13 years, the period by which Ulbricht was in jail.

Grogan remarked that these wallets were probably dust wallets back then, which could explain why the US government paid little attention to them and didn’t trace them. Nonetheless, these wallets at the moment are collectively price over $44 million. This sum could undoubtedly help Ulbricht, who was recently pardoned by US President Donald Trump, get back on target after spending around 13 years in prison for cybercrimes involving the Silk Road marketplace. 

Nonetheless, while these bitcoins may indeed belong to Ross Ulbricht, there may be a probability that the Silk Road may now not have access to them. Grogan noted that it’s unlikely that he has the keys stored down anywhere, meaning that Ulbricht could also be unable to access these funds and even move them to sell. 

Meanwhile, it’s price mentioning that Ross Ulbricht contributed to many of the bitcoins that the US government currently holds. The federal government has seized 144,000 BTC from the Silk Road founder following his arrest back in 2013. The federal government also seized several bitcoins from other suspects who were arrested in connection to the Silk Road marketplace. Arkham Intelligence data shows that the federal government currently holds 198,109 BTC ($20 billion).

One Crypto-Related Campaign Promise Fulfilled 

By pardoning Ross Ulbricht, US President Donald Trump has fulfilled one in all the crypto-related campaign guarantees that he made prior to his election victory in November last 12 months. This move by the pro-crypto president has sparked optimism that he will even fulfill other guarantees made to the crypto community.

Amongst these crypto-related guarantees, which the crypto community is very anticipating, is the creation of a Strategic Bitocin Reserve. Alongside pardoning Ross Ulbricht on day one in office, Trump has promised to create a US BTC reserve, by which the federal government will hold its seized Bitcoin as a substitute of auctioning them. 

Although Trump didn’t mention anything about this BTC reserve or crypto usually in his inaugural speech, Ross Ulbricht’s pardon provides optimism that the US president will fulfill this crypto campaign promise and implement several other crypto-friendly policies.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com