The discharge of Silk Highway founder Ross Ulbricht from jail continues to encourage curious transfers from a few of the oldest and wealthiest bitcoin (BTC) wallets.
Certainly, over the weekend, somebody donated 300 BTC, price $31 million, to one among Ulbricht’s private wallets.
Sourced from BTC from 2014 or earlier, onlookers initially seen the deposit as a donation. Although not all as beneficiant because the $31 million switch, donations to Ulbricht from Bitcoiners have been something however uncommon since his January pardon.
Ulbricht has earned direct donations price lots of of 1000’s of {dollars}, over $1 million through auctions of his private belongings, and untold thousands and thousands from his mom’s NFT and donation campaigns from 2024 and prior.
Simply final week, Ulbricht additionally took to the principle stage on the largest BTC convention in historical past, Bitcoin 2025, and Bitcoin artist CryptoGraffiti donated a bronze statue of the Silk Highway emblem.
The $31 million donation exceeds the next-largest Ulbricht had obtained. Earlier this 12 months, a Solana memecoin neighborhood tried to offer him about $12 million price of tokens. Sadly, he (or somebody controlling its keys) fumbled it fully and misplaced at the very least 90% of its peak worth.
In any case, this weekend’s donation was by far the most important publicly recognized donation to Ulbricht since his launch from jail.
Nonetheless, regardless of the quantity being clear, the thriller of the donor stays.
Learn extra: No, the US authorities hasn’t liquidated 69,000 Silk Highway bitcoin — but
De-mixing Ross Ulbricht’s largest donation
Curiously, the BTC concerned within the donation handed via a centralized mixing service known as Jambler. The operators of that coin mixer tried — but in the end failed — to obscure the unique supply of Ulbricht’s donation.
As a result of the BTC originated over a decade in the past, some individuals initially thought that the switch might have been Ulbricht transferring his personal BTC via Jambler.
Nonetheless, forensic analyst ZachXBT has said that the switch is unlikely to be a coin wash by Ulbricht himself. Certainly, there was on-chain exercise within the donor’s wallets throughout Ulbricht’s internet-free incarceration.
Though ZachXBT isn’t assured sufficient to call the donor, he’s assured that this weekend’s 300 BTC donation isn’t from Ulbricht.
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