David Canellis

Pete Rizzo

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Greetings, and <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1905199552266649871">happy 41st birthday</a> to Ross Ulbricht!



By now, rehashing the Silk Road timeline — from a secret psychedelics lab in an off-the-grid Texas cabin to a global clandestine operation with half a dozen employees — doesn’t seem totally useful.



Besides, long-time Bitcoin History readers have already walked through the events that led to Ulbricht’s dramatic 2013 arrest in a San Francisco public library.



Anyone who missed our email from last year can <a href="https://bitcoinhistorynl.beehiiv.com/p/paid-price-200000-btc?utm_source=bitcoinhistorynl.beehiiv.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=he-paid-the-price-200-000-btc">find it in our archives</a> — it’s definitely still worth the read!



Keep in mind, though: That telling of the story misses its happy ending. It was written before President Trump <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/why-trump-freed-ross-ulbricht-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts">pardoned</a> Ulbricht earlier this year, releasing him from a double-life prison sentence after serving nearly a decade.



To celebrate Ulbricht’s first birthday since his release, let’s instead pay homage to the way he integrated bitcoin payments into Silk Road, for reasons that have been largely lost on modern-day crypto.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">First birthday in freedom today. Beautiful day grilling by the pool. I&#39;ve been given a new life. It&#39;s like being born again.&mdash; Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealRossU/status/1905404620878590447?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Onto this week’s Bitcoin Legend.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdY_VBTwQDI8dZGPhvQqbQns7ZO-IpZKxOxpWS4bgm8C-M7Qn_X5JOQh70u7NjT_GbB6Cb9rkEYhG7FZ6RzGyltQVe2JbGSnG1ssgThmqLI6K2oCSDfCoP_C7A316Hzu_fYw-v81g?key=v4uBzLAEjvmSTiGzzRF8icXB" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht | Freeross.org modified by Blockworks</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">No turning back</h2>



Bitcoin was the obvious fit for Silk Road. It uniquely separates global payments from both governmental and corporate control, imbuing the user with financial self-sovereignty that goes beyond real-world cash.&nbsp;



“Every single transaction that takes place outside the nexus of state control is a victory for those individuals taking part in the transaction,” Ulbricht <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/">wrote</a> in 2012.



It was bitcoin’s uncontrollable nature that matched his vision: a worthy complement to Silk Road’s hidden existence through Tor.&nbsp;



Ulbricht fully understood that bitcoin transfers are immutable. This property, combined with its pseudonymity, forms the basis for what makes bitcoin so interesting as the currency for underground activity: autonomy.



Applied in the right way — with stringent opsec in mind — bitcoin would enable true freedom of commerce on Silk Road.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc3NOKb1sfJDVeEKdcZQhf3OoTWE43EdMwy16Z35HP_5TUhJYdtilCI-O0vw-_7CyR1d_5q0hMhktvL_uxEAH2PQVGPHyZHrwdinr4VPCgED0qgkaedi51Ch3477qqTubGfTGyAKQ?key=v4uBzLAEjvmSTiGzzRF8icXB" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Silk Road was active during one of bitcoin’s first great bull runs, but was taken down just before it hit $1,000 for the first time. (Onchain volume = total onchain volume, not just on Silk Road.)</figcaption></figure>



Ulbricht intended the platform “to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness, however they individually saw fit,” and not the “convenient way for people to satisfy their drug addictions” it had partly become, as he <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-long-and-winding-story-of-silk-road-bitcoins-earliest-major-application">once</a> put it.



Silk Road needed guardrails if it was to solely accept bitcoin for payment. Quality control was crowdsourced via a public review system, and to protect users from fraud, Ulbricht positioned Silk Road as mediator for all transactions on the platform.



That meant escrow. In an automated system, any time a purchase was made, the buyer’s bitcoin payment was temporarily held in a wallet controlled by Silk Road admins, including Ulbricht.



Silk Road then notified the seller that payment was received, and the seller could then proceed with shipment. Once the package arrived on the other side, the buyer would lodge a confirmation on the Silk Road site, after which the bitcoin was released to the seller, who could then withdraw the coins to their own wallets.



Moderators manually handled disputes on a case-by-case basis via a ticker system, similar to how Amazon, eBay and Airbnb operate today.



There’s no question that these processes were riddled with trust assumptions. Both buyers and sellers were required to trust that Silk Road wouldn’t simply vanish with all their bitcoin, and that Silk Road was well equipped to safeguard user funds at all.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcVfTQZJbeeZarnXH4pkN5Zgf-PqRarafAZBsIz84WxnU_-hOG5MTTZMLsKHif57mcJ_LE0FVSpKT0iZ7EXpMWbVPnAt3zkDs66bHRMfe_RqpezValUaTkTDmOHw46h0yM11uz5ag?key=v4uBzLAEjvmSTiGzzRF8icXB" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">This Silk Road payment flowchart was Exhibit 113 A during Ulbricht’s trial</figcaption></figure>



Users also had to believe that moderators would manage disputes appropriately. At times, mods required users to submit potentially-incriminating photographic evidence, including shipping labels and tracking information, which would also need to be protected against leaks and theft.



Regardless, the system worked. By the time the Feds shuttered Silk Road, it had processed 9.5 million BTC in sales — 80% of bitcoin’s circulating supply at the time — and earned 600,000 BTC in commissions, which in September 2013 was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140220003018/https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf">equivalent</a> to $1.2 billion and $80 million, respectively.



Still, Silk Road largely integrated bitcoin in all the right ways. The platform automatically generated a new bitcoin address for every transaction — making them harder to trace. All transactions also took place over Tor, which, when used correctly, can keep IP addresses hidden.



If Silk Road had been built today, maybe it might’ve held escrowed coins in a multisig wallet. At least that would spread some of the trust around. Bitcoin multisigs wouldn’t be <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pay_to_script_hash#:%7E:text=342ftSRCvFHfCeFFBuz4xwbeqnDw6BGUey%20is%20a%20Bitcoin%20address,good%20example%20to%20understand%20P2SH.">enabled</a> until April 2012 — more than a year after Silk Road first launched.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fit for purpose</h2>



Setting aside those concerns, bitcoin and only bitcoin could do what Ulbricht needed.&nbsp;



This is especially true, considering there were only a <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20130428/">handful</a> of alternative cryptocurrencies in Silk Road’s heyday, including Litecoin, Peercoin and Namecoin, all of which had a tiny fraction of bitcoin’s market cap and liquidity.



Let’s say Silk Road was launched on Ethereum in 2025. Perhaps for faster payments, more flexible escrow functionality, or stablecoin support (Silk Road actually allowed users to lock the dollar value of their bitcoin at time of purchase to minimize the impact of price volatility).



If that was the case, hypothetically, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-is-not-under-attack-understanding-mev-boost-relays">one OFAC sanction</a> on Silk Road’s contracts would immediately make it somewhat harder for its transactions to be processed — 31% of all Ethereum blocks right now are <a href="https://www.mevwatch.info/">configured</a> to uphold OFAC directives through censorship. In November, that figure was over 70%.



Not to mention, practically all major stablecoins have in-built functionality that allows their issuers to freeze and confiscate tokens at will, which they regularly do upon request from law enforcement.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> price: $12.20 <a href="https://t.co/w3yalprfg6">pic.twitter.com/w3yalprfg6</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1862866887899541947?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Such features clearly clash with the notion of an independent, libertarian marketplace, regardless of the power held by Ulbricht and the rest of the Silk Road team on the platform.&nbsp;



Silk Road’s legacy is then this: For all the philosophical distance separating “bitcoin” from “crypto” today, the idealistic platform that Ulbricht built was the divergence catalyst. It was a schism point that cracked open the massive fault line now dividing the space.&nbsp;



Through bitcoin, Silk Road undermined the traditional financial system and, even more critically, the entire social order. Ulbricht acted as a freedom maximalist building freedom tech, with none of the cosplay.&nbsp;



It’s a goal far removed from the compliant commerce that stablecoins and their smart contract platforms — which emerged in the wake of Silk Road’s demise — aspire to serve.&nbsp;



Those systems have grown to augment legacy finance rather than free us from it in the ways Ulbricht had hoped.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Unexpected results</h2>



Of course, even Bitcoin’s robust censorship resistance was not enough to protect Ulbricht from the US government. The same goes for other Silk Road operators and power users.



In total, more than 144,000 BTC ($26 million then, $12.6 billion today) was seized from wallets initially controlled by Ulbricht, plus an additional 120,000 BTC from two hackers who’d separately stolen bitcoin from Silk Road while it was active.



It’s likely that tens of thousands more coins were seized from Silk Road users in less high-profile cases over the years.



Therein lies the rub. Bitcoin is clearly resistant in digital space, and Ulbricht was brilliant enough to understand that Silk Road could be the very first killer crypto app. In many ways, there’s been no second-best to this day.



The same can’t be said in our physical meatspace. Ulbricht’s coins were literally taken from him by force and <a href="https://jlopp.github.io/us-marshals-bitcoin-auctions/">sold for relative pennies</a> on their current dollar value.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">There were no stars in prison. The overhead floodlights drowned them out completely. It was like a 5th wall above, cutting me off from the world. I went far from all the lights last night, laid down on a boulder, and looked up at the stars. No more walls. <a href="https://t.co/9StRTIjt77">pic.twitter.com/9StRTIjt77</a>&mdash; Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealRossU/status/1902450286469509275?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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In turn, the US government response to the Silk Road case has formed the playbook for what’s become the Feds’ strategic bitcoin reserve.&nbsp;



Seized coins may never be sold again, and at this stage, the only way the reserve can get any bigger is for authorities to seize even more coins from even more sovereign individuals, no doubt landing some in prison for a sentence comparable to the time Ulbricht served.



And those coins are only valuable, in part, due to the implicit promise that they can’t be tampered with under normal circumstances.&nbsp;



Nothing can square that irony in any way that’s satisfactory, and when bitcoin does indeed become a boon to the Treasury Department, then it will awkwardly have Ulbricht and Silk Road to thank.



Luckily for Ulbricht, he’s just received a gift far greater than any bitcoin stash — freedom — leading to what I can only imagine is the happiest of 41st birthdays.



To Ross. Bitcoin could never be what it is today without him.



— David



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Rizzo’s take, from the Bitcoin Historian</h2>



“What did you get done this week?” Such was the subject line for Elon Musk’s now infamous emails to the US government, but as David points out above, that same email could be sent to the crypto industry today.



Or I’d imagine that might be Ross Ulbricht’s reaction to his realization this week that <a href="https://x.com/RealRossU/status/1904577765434941886">eBay is slow on verifying his identity</a>, a fact that is momentarily keeping him from auctioning his belongings. Is it real user friction? An elaborate troll? On today’s hyper commercialized internet, where Snoop Dogg might “<a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/can.2024.0003#:~:text=On%20November%2016%2C%202023%2C%20the,what%20seemed%20like%20a%20decision">give up smoke</a>” and then sell you a grill, perhaps you can forgive the incredulity. Ross, I would hope, has skipped the web’s descent into a maze of ref-links.



Still, one can’t help but think that Ross might be wondering what bitcoin and crypto have accomplished in his absence, perhaps now more than ever. As the eBay example shows, online commerce frictions remain substantial, despite bitcoin’s initial promise to quell them.



Indeed, there were a host of social commentators who suggested as such, proposing that Ross should relaunch the Silk Road or something like it.



Certainly if there’s someone who could help us chart a course forward, it would be Ross. Far-fetched? Maybe. Then again, so was the idea that any president would pardon him in the first place. If there’s anything I’ve learned in bitcoin, it’s to expect the improbable.&nbsp;



— Rizzo



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Bitcoin

How Silk Road carved the fault line that separates ‘bitcoin’ and ‘crypto’

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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Crypto’s “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-tech-vs-money">wartime</a>” shtick isn’t an exaggeration.&nbsp;



It’s brutal out here even in a bull market — as recently-pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has apparently just found out.



As there are very real conflicts happening around the world right now, gaming might be the better analogy.&nbsp;



There are two major types of online multiplayer experience: player vs. player (PvP) — Street Fighter, StarCraft, CounterStrike — and player vs. environment (PvE) — Helldivers 2, Diablo 4, World of WarCraft.



Ulbricht (or at least whoever is in control of his Solana donation wallet) recently suffered a quintessential PvE experience in crypto:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Someone sent the wallet 50% supply of a pump.fun coin, ROSS, worth $15 million.</li>



<li>The wallet moved to sell $12 million ROSS on Raydium but mispriced it after creating the wrong type of liquidity pool.</li>



<li>An MEV bot detected the arbitrage opportunity and intercepted trades, dumping the tokens via the existing liquidity pool for $600,000 and crashing the price by 90%.</li>



<li>Ulbricht’s donation wallet received nothing in return.</li>
</ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Ross Ulbricht’s Solana donation address received 50% of the supply of ROSS (Ross Ulbricht Fund) from the developer last week. Ross tried to add single-sided liquidity to sell the coins off passively, but accidentally created a pool with Raydium CPMM (Constant-Product Market… <a href="https://t.co/LxoZMfdebb">pic.twitter.com/LxoZMfdebb</a>&mdash; Arkham (@arkham) <a href="https://twitter.com/arkham/status/1884976067452018844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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It’s been characterized as a $12 million loss, but that isn’t really true. The tokens were free, so any cash generated from selling would’ve been pure profit.&nbsp;



The wallet still held 10% of the supply as of Thursday evening, currently worth about over $1 million.



And ok, the MEV bot is controlled by a real person. But considering this particular fumble was mostly due to a misconfigured liquidity pool, I’d say this incident was pure PvE.



Meanwhile, in an adjacent corner of crypto, there’s someone going all out on the PvP experience.



Coinbase director Conor Grogan earlier this week pointed to a single address responsible for launching around 18,000 different tokens via pump.fun.



Every day, the person controlling that address appears to “wake up and create on average ~a dozen of tokens an hour until they go to bed, and then do it again, every day. They&#8217;ve done this for months,” Grogan wrote on X, who commented it seems the launches are manual and not automated.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">To put it in perspective, this one guy created more crypto tokens by himself than the entirety of all crypto tokens in existence from 2009 when BTC went live, until January 2018&mdash; Conor (@jconorgrogan) <a href="https://twitter.com/jconorgrogan/status/1884986641116275084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The implication is that whoever controls the address is dumping the coins on whoever might buy them, rugging each time — total PvP behavior.



So far, the address has executed nearly 6.8 million trades with a 55.6% win rate, so they’re probably profitable.&nbsp;



It could also be they’re farming a potential future pump.fun airdrop, in which case the profits would be effectively compounded if they’re eligible.&nbsp;



You might not like it, but this is what peak crypto performance looks like in 2025.



On the other hand, it’s hard to blame Ulbricht, if it really is him controlling the wallet. When was arrested there were just 36 <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20131001/">cryptocurrencies</a> and only 16 had a market cap over six figures.&nbsp;



Something tells me he’ll catch up quickly.



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Empire Newsletter

Ross Ulbricht donation wallet enjoys perfect PvE moment

James Cirrone

Ross Ulbricht has officially been behind bars for ten years, a grim milestone for the Silk Road founder who is serving a double life sentence — plus 40 years — without parole.



His X account, updated with his fiancée’s help, reminded the world of his conviction with a Sunday evening <a href="https://twitter.com/RealRossU/status/1708605103044010424?s=20">post</a>.&nbsp;



“I sometimes fear I&#8217;ll spend the rest of my life behind concrete walls and locked doors. But I have no one else to blame. It&#8217;s my poor choices that led me here,” the post read. “All I can do now is pray for mercy.”



Ulbricht, now 39, created the Silk Road online marketplace, named for the ancient Eurasian trade route, back in 2011. Modeling itself after eBay, Silk Road offered users the ability to transact anonymously with one another using bitcoin.&nbsp;



The site, which was accessible through Tor, facilitated sales totaling 9.5 million bitcoin (valued at $1.2 billion at the time of transaction) from February 2011 to July 2013, according to a 2013 FBI <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140220003018/https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf">criminal complaint</a> against Ulbricht.&nbsp;



Ulbricht thought of himself as an “idealistic libertarian” and a passionate advocate for free markets. He alleges that ideology inspired him to create an online marketplace based on the non-aggression principle. It would allow users to buy and sell anything they desired, even if the items would be harmful to the buyer, so long as no third party was harmed in the process. Ulbricht claims that the site <a href="https://freeross.org/what-was-silk-road/#ProhibitedItems">worked to prohibit</a> numerous items falling outside of this criteria, including child pornography, acts of violence-for-hire, stolen property, and anything used to “harm or defraud” others.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/doj-bitcoin-silk-road-mempool">DOJ gets Silk Road coins worth $305M stuck in Bitcoin mempool</a>



But rather than becoming a hub for the free and anonymous sale of books, art, clothing and electronics — the kinds of items Ulbricht <a href="https://freeross.org/case-overview/">claims</a> he intended the site to be for — Silk Road became synonymous with the illegal drug trade.



US authorities shut down Silk Road in October 2013, and the FBI arrested Ulbricht on Oct. 1, 2013. The government also <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/silk-road-founder-wants-30-million-bitcoin-us-govt/">seized</a> 144,336 BTC, worth about $30 million at the time.



Ulbricht was later <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/artifacts/ross-william-ulbrichts-laptop#:~:text=A%20judge%20sentenced%20Ulbricht%20to,digital%20currency%20from%20this%20case.">convicted</a> of drug trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering in February 2015. He was sentenced to life in prison on May 29, 2015.



“Ross has expressed heartfelt remorse for creating Silk Road and accepts responsibility for the mistake he made. Although he never intended harm, he has learned how even well-meaning and idealistic actions can have unintended consequences,” a blog post on freeross.org <a href="https://freeross.org/case-overview/">stated</a>.&nbsp;



The remorseful tone that Ulbricht has struck has, at times, been shared by Sam Bankman-Fried — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-bankman-fried-trial-starting-soon">whose trial is set to begin Tuesday</a>, days after Ulbricht’s tenth year of incarceration. The two share additional commonalities.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-government-dumps-bitcoin-silk-road">US government dumps bitcoin stolen from Silk Road, $1.2B to go</a>



Both were major figures in the crypto space, though Ulbricht was involved at a time when bitcoin was much more under the radar. While they were in the public eye, both Bankman-Fried and Ulbricht were young, idealistic and were ultimately accused of some similar crimes, including money laundering.&nbsp;



Notably, there is no equivalent movement behind the former leader of FTX to free him from jail or to drop the charges against him like there is with Ulbricht. A Change.org petition requesting clemency for the Silk Road founder has garnered over half a million signatures.



While Ulbricht was initially accused by the US government of involvement in several sensational and violent crimes, including a murder-for-hire plot, he was never formally charged with any violent crimes in court.



Ulbricht claims these allegations are false and that he never planned a hit against anyone. Prosecutors went <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160305020239/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/silk-road-founder-held-without-bail">on the record</a> in 2013 saying they believed none of the alleged killings transpired.



There have also been complaints that Ulbricht’s sentence is disproportionate when compared to others involved with Silk Road and subsequent “darknet” marketplaces.



For example, Cornelis Jan “SuperTrips” Slomp, who made a name for himself as the most prolific drug dealer on Silk Road, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in May 2015. In 2021, he was granted a compassionate release due to Covid-19 nearly six years into his sentence, according to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/4adjaw/i-made-millions-selling-drugs-online-then-it-all-came-crashing-down">Vice</a>.



The two men who tried to resurrect Silk Road — Blake Benthall and Thomas White — also received much lighter scrutiny than Ulbricht. White was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/12/uk-man-jailed-guiding-mind-behind-silk-road-drugs-site-dark-web">sentenced</a> to over five years in prison by UK authorities in 2019 for his role in operating Silk Road 2.0. Benthall was charged in November 2014 but is <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/nea4kw/silk-road-2-admin-defcon-blake-benthall-tax-crimes-cooperate">believed</a> to have avoided prison time over Silk Road 2.0 due to a guilty plea that requires him to cooperate with law enforcement.



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Ross Ulbricht

Silk Road founder notes 10 years in prison on eve of Bankman-Fried trial

Casey Wagner

The US government sold off more than 9,800 BTC connected to the Silk Road darknet marketplace for about $215 million earlier this month, a court filing released Friday shows.&nbsp;



James Zhong pleaded guilty to hacking Silk Road in 2012 and stealing more than 50,000 BTC (worth less than $1 million at the time), which the government <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-government-now-has-more-btc-than-largest-crypto-holders" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">seized in November</a> 2022.&nbsp;



“In total from the Zhong investigation, the Government has obtained final orders of forfeiture for approximately [51,680.32 BTC], valued at over $3.4 billion at the time of seizure,” the court filing noted.&nbsp;



On March 14, the government sold about 9,861.2 BTC for around $21,800 per token. On this date, bitcoin was trading on most exchanges at a high of around $26,500 and a low of around $24,000, according to <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks Research</a>.



Government officials racked up more than $215,000 in transaction fees for the sale, court documents note. Officials added that they plan to sell the remaining 41,500 BTC ($1.2 billion) in a series of four batches this year. The method of sale wasn’t disclosed.



It is not the first time the US has sold off seized crypto. In 2014, officials unloaded around 30,000 BTC, also taken in connection with Silk Road, to venture capitalist Tim Draper.&nbsp;



The BTC was valued at around $17 million at the time of the auction, but today would be worth more than $850 million. A <a href="https://jlopp.github.io/us-marshals-bitcoin-auctions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dashboard</a> tracking US government bitcoin auctions estimates more than $5 billion has been left on the table by selling BTC too early.



Bitcoin was trading about 1% higher Friday afternoon in New York following the release of the court filing, hovering around $28,450.



US authorities shut down Silk Road in October 2013, arresting maintainer Ross Ulbricht. He was given a double life sentence two years later without possibility of parole.



Updated Mar. 31, 2023 at 12:10 pm ET: Added auction dashboard.



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US Government Dumps Bitcoin Stolen From Silk Road, $1.2B To Go

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_61b386f78fbd6" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>A group of 1,320 crypto investors, who formed the FreeRossDAO, raised over $12 million to win the auction</li>
 <li>Proceeds from the NFT auction will go towards charity, according to Ulbricht</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Ross Ulbricht, a renowned bitcoin proponent who was sentenced to life in prison after founding controversial e-commerce website Silk Road, sold his first NFT at auction for $6.3 million worth of ether on Thursday.&nbsp;



&#8220;I am floored,&#8221; Ulbricht <a href="https://twitter.com/RealRossU/status/1469373599417053186?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> on his account run by a loved one on Friday. &#8220;I feel like I have a new purpose now. The auction exceeded all expectations.&#8221;



Over a thousand crypto investors, dubbed the FreeRossDAO, galvanized to free Ulbricht, raising over $12 million to win the auction. The nascent DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, used half the funds raised for the blockchain-based digital collectible.



“This is just the beginning,” the DAO said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeRossDAO/status/1468902274256756740?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>. “Buying this NFT has not freed Ross. We still have a long way to go to seek justice and rectify his disproportionate sentence of double life imprisonment as a first-time, non-violent offender.”&nbsp;



The DAO, which formed on Dec. 2 after the NFT collection was <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-incarcerated-silk-road-founders-nft-collection-and-the-dao-trying-to-save-him/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>, describes its mission as “[uniting] in solidarity for Ross, gathering funds to buy his <a href="https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/ross-ulbricht-genesis-collection-30841" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Genesis Collection</a> and protesting the injustices of the American prison system.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The leftover funds that weren’t spent in the auction will stay in the group’s treasury and be managed by contributors of the DAO. Members received a $ROSS token to vote on how funds will be used — necessary for the “autonomous” component of a functioning DAO.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Perspective_Ross_Drawing_HD-1-1024x744-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-12426" width="839" height="609"/><figcaption>“Perspective” is a graphite pencil drawing created in prison; Source: <a href="https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/ross-ulbricht-genesis-collection-30841" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection</a></figcaption></figure>



“We really want to get this bootstrapped, started and get the community together to essentially fight for the freedom of Ross but also to fight for fixing this broken prison system,” a member of the DAO, who goes by <a href="https://twitter.com/_jamiis?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Jamis”</a>, said in a Twitter space on Dec. 1.&nbsp;



The Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection consists of artwork he has done as a child and later behind bars, which he described as a depiction of “his [life] story” in a <a href="https://rossulbricht.medium.com/my-nft-f2b4a9f1955c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post.</a>&nbsp;



Proceeds from the collection are going to charity, according to Ulbricht&#8217;s mother, Lyn. “Ross wants to use his art to help people. And we’re starting out with helping the incarcerated [and their families with] the suffering they go through,” she said in the same Twitter space.



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FreeRossDAO

Imprisoned Silk Road Founder Sold His First NFT for $6.3M to the DAO Trying to Free Him

<div id="highlights-block_61a93e5a988e1" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection consists of artwork Ulbricht has done behind bars and throughout his childhood</li>
 <li>The collection will be minted on Ethereum</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Ross Ulbricht, a renowned bitcoin proponent who was sentenced to life in prison after founding e-commerce platform Silk Road, is creating and auctioning off non-fungible tokens (NFTs).



The Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection consists of artwork Ulbricht has done behind bars and throughout his childhood, which he described as a depiction of “his [life] story” in a <a href="https://rossulbricht.medium.com/my-nft-f2b4a9f1955c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post.</a>&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Suddenly, sitting in prison, I had time for drawing again. I reconnected with my artistic side, producing illustrations that told the story I was going through,” Ulbricht said. “I was able to connect to those of you in the free world through my art. The isolation I felt was tempered by it.”&nbsp;</blockquote>



The collection of 10 NFTs will be minted on Ethereum and sold on <a href="https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/ross-ulbricht-genesis-collection-30841" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SupeRare’s</a> platform until next Wednesday. The highest bid for the auction (which started today) is currently at over $1 million worth of ether.&nbsp;



Silk Road holds a momentous position in the history of cryptocurrency, making Ulbricht a bitcoin hero to some and controversial to many.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Starting in 2011 and until his arrest in 2013, Silk Road allowed anonymous shoppers to buy anything, as long as it didn’t harm a third party, using bitcoin. Goods offered ranged from drugs, Fake IDs, art and more.&nbsp;



Ulbricht, whose story became the subject of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31920777-american-kingpin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road</a>, was eventually arrested in a San Francisco public library and later convicted of seven charges including conspiracy to traffic narcotics, conspiracy to computer hacking and money laundering by means of the internet.



Ross, a first-time offender, is serving a double life sentence plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. This inordinately long sentence has galvanized supporters to find ways to help him and others like him who find themselves behind bars.



“In America, you&#8217;re not supposed to give a death in prison sentence in a situation where no one&#8217;s been prosecuted for inflicting any bodily harm,” his mother, Lyn Ulbricht, said in a Twitter space on Wednesday.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="460" height="330" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg" alt="Art by Ross Ulbricht" class="wp-image-12096" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=460 460w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=358 358w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=364 364w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=305 305w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/78994038-2B5D-4979-B8DB-BA331380CFA2_4_5005_c.jpeg?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px" /><figcaption>Source: Ross Ulbricht</figcaption></figure></div>



According to Ulbricht’s mother, proceeds from the NFT auction will be donated to charity, specifically for “helping the incarcerated.”



“Ross wants to use his art to help people. And we&#8217;re starting out with helping the incarcerated [and their families with] the suffering they go through,” Lyn said, adding that funds could go toward helping family members visit those who are in prison.



In response to the Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection, a group of crypto investors have banded together to form a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called <a href="https://freerossdao.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FreeRossDAO.</a>



The DAO, which was announced on Wednesday, will use part of its funds to collectively bid on Ulbricht’s NFT collection. The organization has over $1.5 million worth of ether in its treasury balance, according to its <a href="https://freerossdao.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website</a>. (PleasrDAO seeded the FreeRossDAO multisig with 240 ETH.)



Multisigners for FreeRossDAO include Trippy, Trippy Labs/Chief Freeing Officer; Nadya Tolokno, of Pussy Riot fame and PleasrDAO; Jamis also from PleasrDAO; Cobie from UpOnly; Path, Superhero; René, a lifelong friend of Ross; Elliot, another friend of Ross and program director for Musicambia, an organization building music schools in prisons across the US.



“We really want to get this bootstrapped, started and get the community together to essentially fight for the freedom of Ross but also to fight for fixing this broken prison system,” a member of the DAO, who goes by <a href="https://twitter.com/_jamiis?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Jamis”</a> online, said in the same Twitter space on Wednesday.



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