The discharge of Silk Highway founder Ross Ulbricht from jail continues to inspire curious transfers from a number of the oldest and wealthiest bitcoin (BTC) wallets.
Certainly, over the weekend, somebody donated 300 BTC, price $31 million, to considered one of 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 tens of millions 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 brand.
The $31 million donation exceeds the next-largest Ulbricht had acquired. Earlier this yr, a Solana memecoin group tried to provide him about $12 million price of tokens. Sadly, he (or somebody controlling its keys) fumbled it totally and misplaced at the least 90% of its peak worth.
In any case, this weekend’s donation was by far the biggest publicly recognized donation to Ulbricht since his launch from jail.
Nonetheless, regardless of the quantity being clear, the thriller of the donor stays.
De-mixing Ross Ulbricht’s largest donation
Apparently, the BTC concerned within the donation handed by means of a centralized mixing service referred to as Jambler. The operators of that coin mixer tried — but finally 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 may have been Ulbricht transferring his personal BTC by means of 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 is just not from Ulbricht.
