Earlier than Ross Ulbricht’s conviction on fees associated to his operation of the darknet market Silk Highway, he held 144,000 bitcoins price $28.5 million. Right this moment, their worth would exceed $10 billion.
Ulbricht earned this trove by charging a ten% payment from Silk Highway transactions. When the FBI shut down Silk Highway for varied illegalities, federal brokers seized — and stole — any bitcoin they might discover.
Additionally, in a collection of weird twists, a hacker swiped a few of the bitcoin earlier than it may very well be seized, and North Korean hackers swooped in to take a share.
This mess led the federal authorities to barter an settlement that some misappropriated bitcoin can be used to pay the $183 million in restitution that Ulbricht was required to pay to the US authorities.
As an unlawful enterprise concerned in gross sales of narcotics and firearms, many of the bitcoin on Silk Highway went into US court docket proceedings and has slowly been auctioned off by US Marshalls. A few of it stays within the custody of the US authorities, pending court docket proceedings.
The 2 federal brokers who stole bitcoin from Ulbricht’s stash face fees themselves, together with wire fraud and cash laundering.
The federal authorities finally auctioned off Ulbricht’s bitcoin. Enterprise capitalist Tim Draper, who received 9 of the auctions and a stash of 30,000 bitcoins, has since added his voice to the motion to grant clemency to Ulbricht.
That motion has gained momentum and has culminated in a solemn, repeated promise from incoming President Donald Trump that he’ll free Ross Ulbricht from federal jail by January 21, 2025.
Double life sentence may quickly be ending
Ulbricht is serving a double life sentence for working Silk Highway. Supporters have known as the sentence extreme, particularly contemplating that he’s a non-violent offender and prosecutors dropped fees associated to allegations that he had employed a hitman.
Since then, Ulbricht has communicated with the surface world by his mom’s X (previously Twitter) account. As a result of he has no web entry in jail, he sends paper notes to Lyn Ulbricht, who then posts his phrases to X.
Lockdowns are horrible for my again. There’s nowhere to maneuver round.
I’ve to make a deliberate effort to do all of the workouts that hold me pain-free and to get away from bed early every morning. Even so, it is an uphill battle.
— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) October 17, 2024
Within the years since his imprisonment, Ulbricht’s mom has led the push for his clemency. Particularly, Lyn needs a US president to commute, not pardon, Ross. This could not undo his conviction but would enable him to depart jail.
She created a Change.org petition that has obtained over 600,000 signatures. Signers of the petition declare he’s unlikely to change into a repeat offender if launched.
Tracing the blockchain for Ross Ulbricht’s bitcoin
Lyn has offered Ross’ bodily artwork by a non-profit group, Art4giving, elevating $765,000 on Ulbricht’s behalf for causes reminiscent of prevention and therapy of drug habit and supporting not too long ago launched convicts’ efforts to reintegrate into society.
On the blockchain, an NFT that includes Ulbricht’s hand-drawn artwork from jail has additionally fetched seven figures at public sale. A supporter bought certainly one of his NFTs, for instance, on December 9, 2021, for $4.1 million in ETH by way of NFT market SuperRare.
Nonetheless, this appreciable donation just isn’t in Ulbricht’s private possession. As an alternative, as his web site states, “All proceeds raised from the Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection NFT auction will not be owned by Ross Ulbricht or his family, but by a legally separate entity that will redistribute proceeds towards the Art4Giving fund and efforts to free Ross Ulbricht.”
FreeRoss.org, Lyn Ulbricht’s web site that she operates on behalf of Ross, accepts crypto donations as nicely. Its listed bitcoin pockets accommodates 0.14959432 BTC price $11,500. Donors have additionally given him 1.5 BCH ($550), 881 DOGE ($150), and 0.19 ETH ($550).
There are a number of different crypto wallets with smaller quantities of funds, as nicely, reminiscent of Monero and Horizen.
As an vital observe, most of those wallets maintain far lower than their lifetime receipts. For instance, Ulbricht’s bitcoin pockets has obtained a complete of 12.45 BTC ($950,000) since inception. It’s unclear whether or not these funds stay in his possession after being swept or if they’ve already been expended on his clemency or philanthropic efforts over time.
The blockchain solely tells a part of the story
Whether or not Ross or Lyn owns different crypto belongings past the wallets listed on FreeRoss.org is unclear. Neither he nor his household is required to reveal donations publicly. Though he definitely has hundreds of thousands of supporters around the globe — together with a few of the earliest and most rich Bitcoiners — his present belongings are unknown.
In any case, Donald Trump promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht on the outset of his second presidential time period, and, assuming Trump makes good on that pledge, Ulbricht may also emerge with a minimum of a number of thousand {dollars} — and probably far more.
