Untouched Bitcoin Worth $47 Million Linked to Ross Ulbricht

Conor Grogan, director of product strategy at Coinbase, claims that after more than 13 years, a number of Bitcoin wallets connected to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht are still unaltered. In a post on X (previously Twitter) on January 22, Grogan disclosed that these wallets contain 430 Bitcoin in total, which is valued at almost $47 million.

“I found ~430 BTC across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht that were not confiscated by the USGovt and have been untouched for 13+ years. Back then these were probably dust wallets, now, collectively, they are worth about $47M,” Grogan stated.

The U.S. government’s 2013 crackdown on Silk Road apparently ignored these wallets, which originally held little sums of Bitcoin. Ulbricht, who was eventually sentenced in 2015 to two life sentences plus 40 years for running a criminal business, drug trafficking, and money laundering, was detained after investigators confiscated 174,000 Bitcoin from the darknet marketplace at the time.

Trump’s Pardon and Bitcoin’s Growth

On January 21, 2025, Ross Ulbricht’s name returned to the public eye following President Donald Trump’s complete and unconditional pardon of him. In keeping with a campaign pledge, the pardon was granted on Trump’s first full day in office.

Although a sizable amount of Silk Road’s Bitcoin was seized by the government, several wallets holding smaller sums at the time were unaffected. Currently, 88.77 BTC, or more than $9.4 million, is stored in one such wallet. Airdropped assets, such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) following the 2017 hard fork, are also present in other wallets.

Grogan speculated that Ulbricht might lack access to the private keys for these wallets. Addressing concerns about revealing such information, Grogan clarified:

“Not going to share the addresses but all of them are public (cited in trial docs or directly adjacent) and tracked already by multiple sources.”

The rise in Bitcoin’s value has significantly increased the worth of these dormant wallets. Despite their hefty valuation, the funds remain untouched, leaving many to wonder about their fate and accessibility.