A U.S. appeals court has upheld a warrant issued last August for the confiscation of 69,370 Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies as part of the Silk Road case. Addresses associated with Silk Road currently hold over 99,600 BTC, currently valued at over $4.35 billion.
U.S. justice officializes seizure of Silk Road Bitcoins
A U.S. appeals court has made official a warrant filed last August to confiscate 69,370 Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies as part of the Silk Road case. The document, filed on December 20, names Ross Ulbricht as defendant and the US government and 2 individuals as plaintiffs.
Screenshot from the court document
In 2020, the US Department of Justice carried out the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history by taking control of the wallet of an individual who had managed to hack the Bitcoin wallet of the Silk Road platform. At the time, a Bitcoin was worth around $14,000, bringing the value of the seizure to around $1 billion.
Silk Road had long existed as one of the Internet’s most important criminal marketplaces, before being shut down for good by the US FBI in 2013 during a large-scale operation. At the time of its closure, the platform boasted 13,000 online ads offering, among other things, illegal substances or services such as computer hacking.
To promote anonymity, these products and services were offered in exchange for Bitcoin. It is estimated that 9.5 million BTC passed through Silk Road during its existence, and that the platform’s managers earned a total of 600,000 Bitcoins in commission. Arrested in October 2013, Ross Ulbricht, the website’s creator, was sentenced in 2015 to life imprisonment.
By July this year, the US Department of Justice had moved over 9,800 Bitcoins through 2 transactions. The Bitcoin address that received 506 BTC from one of these transactions has not transferred them since.
Transactions carried out last July from addresses associated with Silk Road
According to Arkham Intelligence data, the addresses associated with Silk Road total over 99,600 BTC, or more than $4.35 billion.
Movements of funds relating to these addresses are being closely monitored, as the US government could potentially decide to sell all or part of them. But as these BTCs are currently considered as evidence by the government, the eventual sale process should logically not take place for several years.
