$2B Silk Road Bitcoin seized by DOJ moves to new wallet

The crypto seized was connected to James Zhong, who was convicted in 2022 of wire fraud related to the Silk Road marketplace.

Roughly $2 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) previously seized by United States authorities and connected to the Silk Road marketplace has moved to a new address.

According to data from the blockchain on April 2, a wallet known to be associated with the U.S. Justice Department made a 0.001 Bitcoin transaction to a Coinbase Prime address — possibly as a test transaction. Shortly thereafter, the same wallet transferred 30,174 BTC, or roughly $2 billion at the time of publication, to a new address. Online sleuths identified the DOJ wallet as that containing Bitcoin seized from James Zhong, who in 2022 was convicted of charges connected to “unlawfully obtained” crypto from Silk Road.

Zhong stole more than 50,000 BTC from Silk Road in 2012. In 2021, U.S. authorities raided his property and discovered hard wallets containing Bitcoin, including one “on a single-board computer that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn tin.” The bulk of the seized crypto was sent to the same address that moved more than 30,000 BTC on April 2.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.