Funds Came from Dubious Sources, Not Likely Ulbricht’s Own
Ross Ulbricht, the convicted creator of Silk Road, recently received a sizeable Bitcoin donation totalling around $31 million. The transfer triggered widespread speculation in the crypto space, with many questioning where the funds had come from and whether Ulbricht had moved the money himself. However, blockchain investigator ZachXBT has reviewed the situation and dismissed the idea that Ulbricht sent the Bitcoin to himself.
The funds were sent to a donation wallet connected to Ulbricht, who had been imprisoned since 2013 for operating the Silk Road marketplace before receiving a pardon from Donald Trump earlier this year. On June 1, blockchain tracking platform Lookonchain revealed that the wallet had received 300 Bitcoin. These funds had passed through Jambler, a centralised Bitcoin mixing service often used to obscure transaction histories.
Ross “donating” bitcoin to himself would be the most based way of proving that bitcoin is unconfiscatable and the biggest middle finger to the state.
You can take a man’s freedom away but you can’t stop him from memorizing 12 words.
— Carla ⚡ (@HodlingCarla) June 1, 2025
Due to the involvement of Jambler, many online users were quick to float the theory that Ulbricht may have hidden funds prior to his arrest and was now quietly retrieving them. Some believed the size of the donation made it highly unlikely to be a gesture of goodwill from an unknown supporter. However, the timeline and wallet activity suggest a different picture.
Image 1: Ross Ulbricht (Source: Sky News)
Wallets Traced to Pre-Arrest Activity
According to ZachXBT, the wallets involved in the donation had been active years before Ulbricht was granted release. He tracked two key addresses—one that was last used around 2014 and another last used in 2019. Both timeframes fall within Ulbricht’s prison term, which raises doubts about the idea that he could have had access to them.
What stood out to ZachXBT was the long period of dormancy. These wallets held their Bitcoin untouched for several years until suddenly reactivating between April and May 2025 to send the funds through Jambler. These movements coincided with the timing of the 300 Bitcoin donation landing in Ulbricht’s wallet. The link in timing, combined with the wallet activity history, points to an outside party making the donation, not Ulbricht himself.
Further adding to the mystery, one of the wallets had already been flagged by compliance monitoring systems used by exchanges and regulators, which suggests it may have been associated with suspicious or potentially unlawful activity in the past.
Not a Privacy Move, But an Unusual Choice
The method used to mask the source of the Bitcoin also drew attention. ZachXBT noted that most people concerned about privacy tend to use decentralised mixing tools. In this case, the donor chose Jambler, a centralised mixer that sees fewer large transactions and is easier to trace in comparison. This choice makes the donation more curious, as it stands out from standard privacy-focused behaviour in the crypto world.
While the source of the funds is murky, the available evidence points away from the idea that Ulbricht simply transferred old Bitcoin from hidden wallets. Instead, it appears the funds came from long-dormant wallets controlled by unknown individuals or groups that had some connection to past exchange activity but no clear link to Ulbricht.
Update: Few entities regularly use Jambler in size so I found a potential demix for the donation. 1Mp5hH originates from late 2014 exchange activity. 1CNDW has 2019 exchange activity and was previously flagged in compliance tools.
1Mp5hH & 1CNDW were depositing in size to…
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 2, 2025
More Bitcoin Still Linked to Ulbricht
This is not the first time wallet addresses tied to Ulbricht have drawn attention. Earlier this year, Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, reported finding over 430 Bitcoin held in wallets associated with Silk Road that had remained inactive for over a decade. These funds, worth over $45 million at the time, were never seized by authorities. Blockchain research firm Arkham Intelligence also confirmed that at least 14 addresses were connected to Silk Road, with one wallet alone holding Bitcoin worth over $9 million.
Image 2: Ulbricht (Source: CoinDesk)
Aside from the donation, Ulbricht has recently raised funds by auctioning personal items from before his arrest. Items included a backpack, sleeping bag, paintings created during his time in prison, and other memorabilia. The auction brought in close to $2 million in Bitcoin.
Although the identity of the donor remains unknown, and the transaction was designed to hide the trail, experts believe it is highly unlikely that Ulbricht had any hand in moving the funds himself. Instead, the donation came from obscure and previously inactive wallets with ties to questionable sources—continuing the long-standing mystery that still surrounds the digital remains of the Silk Road era.
