Did Hackers Move $1 Billion in Bitcoin From the Silk Road Hack?

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Last Updated on 4 November 2020 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
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According to crypto intelligence firm CipherTrace, an anonymous user moved some 69,370 Bitcoins which hadn’t been touched since 2015. As that kind of Bitcoins at today’s price mean a 1 billion dollar valuation, this would be newsworthy in itself, but the more interesting part is that the address refers to a Silk Road wallet.

For those of you that don’t know, the Silk Road was a darknet transaction marketplace that was shut down by the FBI because it sold illegal goods such as drugs and weapons. It was there that Bitcoin was first used as an actual currency to purchase goods, albeit highly illegal ones.

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Double life sentence

The site’s original founder, the German Ross Ulbricht, was arrested by the FBI and is currently serving two life sentences. He has not been granted the possibility of being up for parole given that the US Federal Authorities wanted to make an example out of him for starting up such a site. From time to time, Ulbricht gets into the crypto news as he still makes analyses about the Bitcoin price from his cell.

CipherTrace reported that:

These movements could possibly mean that the wallet owner is moving funds to new addresses to prevent hackers from accessing the wallet.dat file or that hackers have already cracked the file.

If indeed hackers would have gotten into the Silk Road’s original wallet, that would be one of the ultimate prizes indeed. The biggest one of course remains the first one million mines Bitcoins, which are held by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.